


Wrap The Dark Around Me

by jsq



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Action & Romance, Angst, Bratva, Child In Danger, F/M, Human Trafficking, Post-Season/Series 04, Undercover, canon compliant until season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-11 15:54:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 50,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7898737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jsq/pseuds/jsq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the specter of Oliver's past becomes a very real threat to the people of Star City, the boundaries of Oliver and Felicity's partnership are tested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Half Lives

**Author's Note:**

> This is a twelve-chapter story and my plan is to update twice each week on Sundays and Wednesdays. It is canon-compliant through the end of season 4, though I'm taking a few liberties with Dig's role in his break from Team Arrow.

It was a long walk from the diamond to the VIP box, made longer by all the people wanting to stop Oliver along the way. He made time for everyone--posing for photos, giving out high-fives, insisting that tonight he wasn’t Mayor Queen; tonight he was just another Rockets fan. He was only one landing from his destination when he saw her. A face from years ago. From a different life.

Not her. Couldn’t be her.

Had to be her. He wouldn’t make a mistake. She was etched indelibly in his memory; it may have been five years, but he knew her face better than his own.

A little boy who reminded Oliver viscerally of a young Tommy was admiring his hat, but Oliver had to go, had to find her.

“Here, buddy. It looks better on you.” He handed the child his hat and heard the excited “Thank you!” yelled after him as he began pushing his way to the edge of the crowd.

She had been there. Right there, by the concessions. He whirled, asked the startled elderly lady beside him, “Did you see--?”

But how could he finish that? “Did you see a young woman with brown hair?” There were hundreds of women there tonight fitting that description. Oliver tried to call up what she’d been wearing, but he could only put her in the clothes she’d had on five years ago.

Blue leggings. A red Justin Timberlake t-shirt. Red knock-off converse low-tops. All of it too little protection against against the icy Moscow air.

He kept searching, but with every passing second it felt more and more possible that it was just a trick of his memory. With everything on his mind recently, it made sense. He was playing in the past and so his subconscious was digging up ghosts.

By the time he reached the VIP box, he almost had himself convinced.

Felicity was waiting for him. “Nice pitch, Mr. Mayor.” She held out a hotdog. “Extra relish, just like you like, even though it physically pains me to watch you eat a processed meat tube covered in fluorescent pickle slime.”

“I do love my pickle slime.”  They settled back to enjoy the game, and he thought he was doing a pretty good job of refocusing on the present.

“Wait, are your hands shaking? Oliver Queen, were you nervous?”

So maybe not.

His instinct was to deny it, but the trembling hotdog gave him away. He pasted on smile, searched for something like the truth. “It’s a big moment for the city. This team is something we can all rally behind. Throwing the opening pitch is a symbolic moment. If it had fallen short...I don’t know maybe that would’ve been symbolic too.”

“Whatever. You just didn’t want people laughing at you on twitter.”

“I haven’t thrown a baseball since I was twelve! It was a high pressure moment.”

“Oh how the cocky have fallen.”

He would’ve had a thing or two to say to that, but the Rockets made a double play. He was on his feet immediately. His mouth was too dry; he was light-headed. He told himself he’d just stood too quickly. He told himself everything was fine.

He turned to Felicity. “Did you see that? Text Barry that Central City is going down.”

She rolled her eyes but did it anyway. When her phone chimed a few seconds later she held it up for Oliver to see. “Barry says to remind you it’s only the first inning and that baseball is a very long game.”

He grabbed the phone from her and started texting furiously, his hands finally steadied. He was the mayor of the city he loved, and he had worked hard to make this night possible. His worries could wait; he was going to have fun.

He wasn’t surprised a few innings later when Felicity started dictating insults. One thing Oliver had learned about Felicity last summer, much to his delight, was that while she didn’t really care for sports, she cared very much for trashtalk. And she was good at it. She escalated things by sending poor Barry Allen, who was really out of his league, videos. Soon, Oliver and Felicity were laughing so hard they could barely get their words out.

The Jumbotron caught them like that--all smiles, doubled over, Felicity grasping Oliver’s forearm. It was brought to their attention by the chorus of “awwww” coming from the stands. They saw themselves on the screen, and jumped apart like they’d been burned. Luckily the camera had moved on before the “awws” became awkward whispers. He didn’t know if maybe he should say something or apologize, or if that would just make it even more weird. They’d been having such a nice time. Luckily Felicity’s phone chimed with Barry restarting their text war.

When the 9th was over and the Rockets managed a one point win, they sent a final video that included a really obnoxious victory dance, then Oliver stood by the exits shaking hands and chatting with fans...secretly searching for the girl he thought he’d seen.

But she wasn’t there. He’d made a mistake.

It had been a mistake.

When the last person left, Felicity joined him.

“Dig texted me a baseball emoji and a thumbs-up.”

“So he cared enough to find a way to stream the game from the Philippines. Did you ask him when he was coming home?”

“Oliver. You know he’s under a one year consulting contract. He can’t just come home, even if he wants to.”

Yeah, he knew that.

“And you could just talk to him yourself.”

He knew that too.

“I thought you weren’t mad at Dig?”

“I’m not mad at him.” He just missed him. And, truthfully, he needed him in Star City.

Felicity looked like she had more to say--she always had more to say--but she must have decided to let it drop. “This was a good night.”

“It really was, wasn’t it?” He’d gotten some pushback about prioritizing the baseball stadium when there was still so much rebuilding to be done, but Oliver knew this was important. People needed a place where they could come together and feel normal, even just for a few hours.

And maybe the success had gone to his head, or maybe talking about Dig made him nostalgic, or maybe the romantic in him couldn’t resist standing here alone with her under the lights of the stadium, but whatever it was he couldn’t stop himself from turning to her with longing in his heart and saying, “Felicity--”

“Oliver.” She was already stepping away from him.

“Why not?”

“You know all the reasons why not.”

He did. He’d even thought he had accepted them.  “I’m sorry. I got caught up in something...all the winning.” The humidity was making her hair curl, and she kept twisting it up off her neck. He wanted so badly to reach out and help her. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at the stars. “It won’t happen again.”

“I like what we have. I don’t want to lose it.”

He would do whatever it took to make sure that didn’t happen. Even if it meant letting go. He smiled down at her.

“Not a chance.”

oOo

So, sleep was not going to happen. Felicity had been trying since 11:00 when she got back from the baseball game, and that was over three hours ago. She checked her phone, hoping for a distraction, but all that was waiting for her was another text from her father. She deleted it without reading and blocked the number. For all the good it would do her; he’d just start using another. Her father, despite his help in May, had shown her that he wasn’t good for her & she was going to believe him. He was going to have to take the hint.

Men.

She pounded her pillow in frustration and slipped to the floor to fold herself in a downward facing dog. Before the city had once again gone to hell, she’d “graduated” from physical therapy, but both Paul and Curtis were always on her to try yoga. “It will improve your flexibility,” Paul would say. “It will quiet your mind,” Curtis would add.

She could use a quiet mind.

One-one. Two-two. Three-three. She counted her in and out breaths. If she focused on numbers and breathing, there was no space in her mind for things like bad news dads and last May and the half-life of radionuclides and the dead and the survivors with cancer and chemotherapy in their future--

STOP. Four-four. Five-five. Six-six. See? Breaths. And counting. Peace. It hadn’t been her fault. She’d done her best. She’d saved millions, she’d saved millions, she’d saved millions.

Seven-seven. Eight-eight. Nine-nine. Anything else. She could think about anything else. Like how she should amend her Guidelines For Interacting With Oliver Queen to include “Do not look Oliver Queen in the eyes. You cannot handle it.” Which she could not, because she loved those eyes and she loved seeing hope in them the way there was tonight when he slipped and tried to convince her to try again. And when you combined those eyes with the way she still loved him and the way it fucking hurt to end it and how easy it would be to just fall right back in and then you mix in the way he still smelled so good and how his arms looked in that emerald Rockets t-shirt and how she would bet anything that he requested one on the small side on fucking purpose...okay, what kind of monster brain goes from thinking about the death and destruction of tens of thousands of innocent lives to wanting to jump Oliver Queen?

Ten-ten. Start again. One-one. Two-two.

This wasn’t going to work. Her mind was just as busy as it always was, the only difference being that she was upside down and uncomfortable. She pulled herself upright. A little too quickly, judging from the way the room tilted and she had to grab onto her dresser for support. Fracking yoga.

She needed more than something to focus on; she needed something to do. She needed to get out of this loft that mostly just tortured her with memories anyway. She needed work. Not her day work. She’d made a promise to Curtis that they would keep normal office hours and at this stage of the project there wasn’t a ton she could do without him. Plus, she’d already learned the hard way that he got very grumpy when you called him after bedtime.

She needed work of the nighttime variety. There had been far too little of that with the Green Arrow being kept too busy being Mayor Queen to do much vigilante-ing. Plus the citizens of Star City seemed to be in some sort of post-disaster honeymoon period where everyone was too occupied sifting through ruins and going to baseball games to commit crimes.

Which was totally a good thing. If not entirely helpful to Felicity in this moment.

Of course, there was this one question from the whole Damien Darhk debacle that remained unresolved and had been nagging at her…. She threw on a bra under her pajama top. This was something she should look into at the lair with its superior processor and access to facial recognition.

She grinned as she slipped into her flip flops. Finally. Night work.

oOo

Felicity’s entire body relaxed when she stepped inside the green glow of the lair’s computers. She’d been here every day, using it as a makeshift office for S & H Technology-- because why should all this space go to waste?-- but she hadn’t been here in the dark since the night she told Oliver she was staying. Now she had business here again. Arrow-ish business. If you squinted. And disregarded the fact that she wasn’t really planning to mention any of this to the actual Arrow. Yet.

“No need to say something until you actually find something.” She sat at her computer and flexed her fingers. “Of course, I’m not exactly sure where to start, which means I’m basically going to have to throw things at the virtual wall to see what-”

“I thought you were working on not talking to yourself so much.”

“Oh my god!” Felicity span too fast on her chair, spinning herself right off of it and right onto her ass on the concrete floor. “Dammit. My tailbone. Oh, that’s going to bruise.”

“Are you okay?”

She heard more amusement than concern in Oliver’s voice. He reached down to pull her up and she caught a wide grin spreading across his face. Good thing too, because him laughing at her annoyed her, and she could really stand to be annoyed by him right now, or else it might be hard to yank her hand away or not melt in the face of that smile.

“What are you doing here, Oliver?” She snapped, but then she remembered. “Oh. Right. You live here. I actually forgot that. I mean, I’m here everyday working and you’re not here, although, of course you wouldn’t be because you’re out Mayor-ing. And it’s really hard to picture someone who dresses the way you do as mayor sleeping in a secret lair. So, yeah, I...forgot.”

There was still amusement written all over his face when he stepped a little closer into her space. She fought the urge to back up. “You like the way I dress, Felicity?”

Yes, you look amazing in a suit. Was something she would not say. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. She smirked at him instead. “I see cocky Oliver is making a reappearance.”

He put a little more respectable space between them. “What are you doing here at,” he pushed a button on his phone, “nearly 3:00 AM? And what is it that you’re not saying something about until you’ve found something?”

She could answer that question, but the two books draped over Oliver’s arm provided an intriguing distraction. “Are you reading?”

“Why are you asking like that? I read.”

She snorted. “I have never witnessed you reading. Especially not books with titles like” she grabbed the books off of his arm, “ _Failed States and Power Vacuums_ or _Blood Brotherhoods: Organized Crime and the State._ Oliver, what is all this?”

He grabbed the books away from her and sank into her rolling chair. Just like that he’d gone from amused to dejected, but Felicity was an experienced rider of the rollercoaster that was his moods. She hopped up on the desk across from him and waited.

“I am trying to be a good mayor.”

“You are a good mayor.” She knew this in her bones. She was amazed by what he’d accomplished in so short a period of time, and she wasn’t going to let him do that thing he always does where he convinced himself that he wasn’t enough. “I think tonight was a pretty good example of that. Not to mention all of the infrastructure projects that are well on their way to being completed.”

“That’s what I’ve been spending all of my time on. You can’t really focus on anything else when there’s a giant crater splitting your city in two.”

“Exactly. That is the one good thing about getting fired from Palmer Tech. If I still worked there, my commute would be a bitch.”

That bought her a smile. He rolled closer to her, and she tried to ignore how familiar, how right, this felt, the two of them processing together at the end of a day.

“I love being mayor,” he started again. “But it’s also...more limiting than I realized it would be.”

Felicity nodded. “Not a lot of time for night work.”

“There are things that I can’t really involve myself in. Working in the light makes it difficult to move in the shadows.”

She narrowed her eyes as it hit her he was talking about something specific. “Well, maybe that’s where you’re lucky I stayed. And maybe it’s one more good thing that comes from no longer being Palmer Tech’s CEO. I’m back to being a nobody in this town...which means, I could be your person in the shadows. In a vigilante way.”

“Felicity Smoak will never be a nobody, not in any town.”

It was a deflection. One delivered with patented Queen charm, but a deflection nonetheless.

“You’re not going to tell me what you’re worried about, are you?”

He opened his mouth and for a split second she thought he’d prove her wrong, but she knew him too well for him to really surprise her anymore. “It’s nothing.”

“Right. Well, I’m going to go.” Suddenly she was tired enough to sleep. He reached for her, but she didn’t turn around. Now was a good time to enact that “no eye contact” rule she established earlier.  
“Why are you making me feel like I just failed some sort of a test?”

Because you did. Which was another thing she wouldn’t say because they were over and it wasn’t fair for her to have expectations of him anymore and she was extremely fucking fair. “No test, Oliver. I’m just tired.”

When she still didn’t turn around, he walked to stand in front of her and tilted her chin up so she was facing him. And damn him for that, because now she had to break her rule and look him in the eyes, or else it was just weird and everything was weird enough already.

“You never answered my question either,” he reminded her softly. “What brought you here in the middle of the night?”

It wouldn’t be a big deal to tell him; it was nothing she needed to keep a secret. She’d really like to think she wasn’t petty enough to refuse to answer him just because her feelings were hurt that he rejected her offer to help him. But she also hadn’t slept, really slept, since...she couldn’t remember when, and she was mad at herself for letting him hurt her again. Screw it, she’d be a grown-up tomorrow.

“Nothing.” She saw her disappointment reflected in his eyes.

“Good night, Mr. Mayor.”

“Night, Felicity.”

oOo

_“And the fire, it symbolizes the way you will burn if you ever betray the oath you’ve made tonight.”_

_Serious talk. Designed to intimidate him. But nothing scared him anymore._

_“Drink, Oliver!”_

_He swallowed the vodka in one gulp. It burned its way through him._

Oliver tried to return his attention to the massive stack of paperwork requiring his time, but thoughts of his first weeks in Russia kept intruding. He had barely been human at that point. He hadn’t given a thought to what he was doing during the initiation. He owed a debt, and Anatoly offered him a way to pay it. They tattooed the black sun over his heart, a symbol of protection they had said, and he had agreed to do whatever they asked of him….

Oliver scratched his signature onto the form in front of him so forcefully he tore right through the paper. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stop the flood, not wanting to remember all the things they’d asked of him. Outside his office, his staff was bustling around, making phone calls, handling the press. They didn’t know who their mayor was, what he’d done. They didn’t know the kind of trouble that might follow him into the light.

For the hundredth time, Oliver picked up his cell and dialed the first few digits of a number he’d hoped to never call again. For the hundredth time, he stopped before hitting send. He wanted to know if Anatoly knew that the current mayor of Star City was also a (former?) Bratva captain. On the other hand, maybe the city and Oliver Queen were no longer on the organization’s radar. If not, that would surely change with a phone call from Oliver after two years of silence.

Seeing her last night, thinking he had seen her, had shaken him. Even though it had been nothing _(it had been nothing)_ , it forced all the fears in the back of his mind right to the forefront. He knew that a city in freefall, even if they were doing everything they could to turn it around, was prime operating ground for any mafia organization. With his connections, some might assume that they’d have his tacit approval, if not his active support. These were the things keeping him up at night. This was what he couldn’t quite bring himself to tell Felicity. He knew what kind of people rushed to fill power vacuums. He had been one of those people.

He didn’t want any of it to touch Felicity.

And that was something he had to let go. She was all that remained of his team, and if he wanted to protect the city from the ghosts of his past....

Oliver ripped off the tie that suddenly felt like it was choking him and rolled up the sleeves on his shirt.

He made a decision.

oOo

He heard Felicity and Curtis laughing as soon as he opened the door; they stopped as soon as they noticed his footsteps.

“It’s just me,” he called, knowing they were probably wondering which super-villain was coming for them now.

“Oliver, man, hey! It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you down here in the daytime.” Curtis shook his hand. “Do I have to call you Mr. Mayor now?”

“Oliver is fine, Curtis.” He tried to make eye contact with Felicity, but she was determinedly ignoring him, pouring instead over something--a robot maybe?--at her workstation. Oliver took in all of the new equipment Felicity and Curtis had set up, equipment that was usually long put away by the time he came back here to sleep.  “Wow. Look at all this.”

“Cool, right? When Felicity said she wanted to create a market-ready version of her spinal chip as soon as possible, she wasn’t playing. It’s not just the chip either.” Curtis put on his best Mr. Dennis voice. “We here at S&H Technology have already created plans for several other prototypes we think will lead to breakthrough treatments in spinal cord injuries.”

“This is...remarkable. The two of you really are the dream team. How could you even afford all this?”

Felicity finally looked up at him, and he could tell she couldn’t contain her excitement for her work. “Remember that deposit you made into my account when you decided to take a Lian Yu break?”

He cringed. That had not gone over well with her.

“What I didn’t spend on Arrow-related purchases. I invested. Well. Besides, I did spend a year as the CEO of Palmer Tech with a crazytown salary and since I wasn’t raised a bajillionaire, I didn’t take that for granted. Plus, I grew up with Donna Smoak, master of stretching a dollar--seriously, Oliver, you should appoint a single mother to take charge of the city’s finances--and, so, here we are.”

“Remarkable,” he repeated.

One of the computer screens caught his eye and he walked over to take a closer look, but Felicity nearly broke her ankle jumping up to turn off the monitor. He was surprised by how much that stung.

“What? You think I’m here to steal company secrets?” He tried to force it into sounding like a joke.

Felicity was nervous, he could tell by the way she started twirling her hair, but then she smiled at him brightly.

“You know what I’ve been meaning to tell you? You should move back into the loft.”

His heart stuttered and the sting of a few moments ago was immediately eased.

“You...you want me to move back?”

“Yes!” he vaguely heard Curtis shout from somewhere behind him. “I knew all y’all needed was a little more time.”

“Felicity-” And then he saw it. The way her face began to flame and her eyes widened in horror. His heart stuttered again, but not in a good way.

“Oh. Oh god. No, I just meant...the sublet is up on my townhouse...it’s been a year...I meant I could go back there, and you could go to the loft-”

“No, of course. I know what you meant.”

“Because it’s weird that the city’s mayor is kind of homeless, and the press are all over you, and one day they might start asking questions about where you sleep at night, and that could be bad, and I am so, so sorry if I wasn’t clear on that-”

“Felicity,” he interrupted her, “ you were clear. I didn’t think-” He did, though. He did think.

“Good. That’s good.”

“Um, the loft.”

“Yeah. You could go back there this week even. I can get my things out quickly. Curtis will help, right?” She turned to her stunned partner.

“Right-o, boss. Or, partner now, I guess. And I mean, I could help you too Oliver. Hell, I like helping people move. You know, just get me some pizza and beer,and-”

“It’s fine, Curtis.”

“Cool. Cool, cool.”

Suddenly Oliver wanted nothing more than to turn on his heel and go, his reason for coming in the first place all but forgotten.

“Felicity’s trying to figure out what happened to Damien Darhk’s creepy daughter!”

Oliver and Felicity whirled around as one to gape at Curtis, who was now standing with his hand clamped over his mouth.

“Curtis!”

“I’m sorry Felicity, but you know I can’t handle awkward silences. And I’m not really good at secrets either. Except your big green secret of course.” He looked at Oliver. “That one’s safe with me, Oliver. Or, you know what, let’s stick with Mr. Mayor, yeah?” He started backing up and with the way Felicity’s eyes were flashing, Oliver couldn’t really blame the man. “I’m...going to take my lunch break now.”

“It’s 10 AM,” Felicity ground out.

But Curtis was halfway out the door, mumbling something about skipping breakfast and hypoglycemia, and Oliver was alone with Felicity.

“Damien Darhk’s daughter?” He asked after a beat.

She waved him off. “I’ll explain later.” His skepticism must have shown because she added, “I will. But you seemed all huffy and in a hurry when you came down here before, so spit it out, mister. What’s going on?”

“I wanted to talk about last night.”

“Oliver-”

“Not...not that,” he assured her. After the whole “move back” fiasco, his dignity couldn’t take another reference to their relationship. “I was wondering if your offer to be my ‘person in the shadows’ still stands?”

“Yes. Absolutely. I’m your guy. Girl. Woman.” The way her entire face lit up at his invitation to get involved in something potentially dangerous should scare him, but instead he was happy to make her happy, relieved to share this burden.


	2. Resurrection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did Team Arrow ever learn Damien Darhk's daughter's name? For the purposes of this story, let's go with no. :)

“Felicity!”

From across the hotel ballroom, she saw Paul, Curtis, and an older lady she didn’t know standing under the Star City Rises banner. They were waving to her and she wove her way through the well-dressed crowd to join them. She’d been hoping to catch Oliver before his speech, but she suspected this was about business and S & H Technology was supposed to be her priority today.

“Dr. Flores, this is the woman I was telling you about- Felicity Smoak. She’s the founder of S & H Technology and Curtis’s partner. Felicity, Dr. Flores is one of the country’s preeminent experts in spinal cord injuries. She flew in for the symposium because she wanted to learn more about your work.”

Felicity and Curtis launched into the history of their young company-- their friendship, Felicity’s subsequent paralysis, Curtis’s gift, and Felicity’s determination to pay it forward. The doctor didn’t even need their hard sell. 

“Your company is one I’d be very interested in investing in. Unfortunately, I can’t stay for the whole symposium, but I’m hoping you’ll be willing to visit me in Monument Point to discuss the details.”

Felicity choked on the water she’d been sipping. “Monument Point?” Just the name sent her heart racing and vision tunneling. A strong hand landed on her shoulder, grounding her to the here and now. Curtis.

“We’d love to, Dr. Flores. We’ll be in touch soon.”

Curtis kept his hand on her shoulder through their goodbyes to the doctor and small talk with Paul. As soon as his husband wandered off to speak with colleagues from Star City General, he turned to her. “You okay?”

She tried to force a smile. “Yeah. Just…”

“Reminders suck.”

“Pretty much. It’s ridiculous, right? I mean, of all things, that’s what throws me? Just hearing a name? Stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. But if you’re looking for a distraction and since we’re speaking of names, I have some information you might be interested in.”

Felicity’s eyes widened and she dragged Curtis away from the center of the room and any potential eavesdroppers. “Spill.”

“Well, I stopped by our ‘office’ this morning to pick up the prototype for our booth and I...sort of...checked on your computers. Which I know I’m not supposed to do,” he rushed to add before she had the chance to scold him, “but one of your sketchy hacker contacts was pinging you, so I decided to engage him. Or her, sorry that was sexist of me.”

She groaned and glared at him. “Curtis you know you’re not--”

“Supposed to involve myself with your sketchy hackers. I know, I know, but I pretended to be you--”

“CURTIS!” The head of every person milling around the continental breakfast buffet swiveled toward them, so Felicity pulled him out of the ballroom to yell at him in private. “What were you thinking?” She swatted at his stomach.

“That we might not make it back to the ‘office’---”

“You don’t have to put finger quotes around the word office every time you say it.”

“Fine. Anyway, I thought we might not have time to go back after the symposium before you-know-who arrived to sleep or move his stuff or whatever. And since you’re avoiding you-know-who--”

“I’m not avoiding him. In fact, I was just looking for him. Not that this is any of your business. Just tell me what you found out while pretending to me and doing something I had expressly forbidden you to do.”

“I found out that Creepy Orphan Darhk’s actual name is Nora Darhk. That’s why Sketchy Hacker Contact was pinging you.”

Felicity took that in. “Nora. And she has his last name?’

“She has a birth certificate and everything. Should make it easier to track her down, right? But, and I know I’m on thin ice now, to what end?”

She didn’t answer because she wasn’t exactly sure. She wanted to know what happened to the little girl she’d last seen when Thea was threatening to kill her, but she hadn’t really thought beyond that. And besides, the search for Nora was going to have to take backseat to the symposium and her news for Oliver today. “His speech has started. Let’s go.”

oOo

Oliver took his place at the mic, grateful for the podium that hid his shaking hands. His voice was steady and relaxed as he fell into his speech welcoming everyone to the symposium and introducing the city’s leadership, including a newly reinstated Chief Lance. The baseball game had been the launch party for his Star City Rises campaign, but this was the official kick-off. The goal was to unite leaders from all sectors behind the goal of rebuilding and strengthening the city while attracting jobs and outside investment. So far, it was working.

Which was why Oliver couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. He’d been succeeding and with every success, the bar rose a little higher. He didn’t know how to trust wins anymore. He could play the role of the charming young mayor flawlessly, but at his core he desperately feared the day it would all inevitably come crashing down--the day that he would be the one to fail the city. That fear was what had him conjuring ghosts at baseball games, contemplating phone calls he knew better than to make, and sending Felicity on what would probably amount to a paranoid cyber goosechase. 

He saw a flash of bright purple at the back of the room and immediately felt more settled. Felicity, with Curtis in tow. She smiled at him while Curtis offered an exaggerated thumbs-up, and just like that his hands weren’t trembling anymore.

“There is no denying that this city has taken not one, but many violent blows,” he began to wrap up his speech. “We’re standing here among the ruins, but this is not the end of our story. We haven’t given up. We’re still here and together we will build something stronger, something better than we had before. We will show the world our resilience and we will once again make Star City a place you’re proud to call home.” 

There was a Q & A period following his speech, and Oliver was in the zone. He spoke passionately and articulately about his plans for the city. It was moments like this that erased his doubts and made him believe he’d be able to do infinitely more good in the light.

“Mayor Queen, what about the drain of human capital the city is facing? There are employers from all over the world actively recruiting Star City residents for jobs in other places.”

“Look, I can’t blame anyone for wanting to find a safe place for their families, a place with plenty of opportunities. And come on,” he gestured to the wall of windows behind him, “we can all see the crater left by the latest round explosions to rock our city. I, maybe more than anyone, understand the urge to go. To pick up and start a different life in a quieter place.” He sought out Felicity and held her gaze. “I understand, but I’m still going to ask you to stay. This is our city, and it needs you, every one of you. So stay. Build with us.”

Oliver smiled at the next person at the mic. A brunette wearing a skirt  about six inches too short for the tone of the event. “Yes, how may I help you?”

She smiled a big smile before leaning into the mic and asking, “Mayor Queen, is it true that you’re officially single?”

Before the entire room broke into laughter, Oliver heard a choking noise that he was pretty sure was coming from Curtis. He refused to let himself look at Felicity and instead put on his best charm mask.

“Okay, I think that concludes the question and answer portion of the day,” he said good naturedly. “I look forward to talking with each of you about what you can do to help Star City rise.”

The applause was deafening and when Oliver stepped off the stage he was surrounded by people wanting to shake his hand, tell him what he could do for them, or in the case of the brunette from the Q & A and a few of her friends, tell him what they could do for him. He was no stranger to the limelight, but it was intense. And his face was starting to hurt from smiling. The brunette--Kelly? Kelsey?--she said her name, but it didn’t register- was literally petting his arm while trying to convince him to meet about her plan for a Star City-based reality dating show. She was flirting with him in that over-the-top way that felt uncomfortable, but also really familiar. 

He asked a couple of questions about her ideas. Sincerely this time, because maybe he should...he’d promised to move on, right? And he’d done a pretty thorough job of proving what everyone had always said about Oliver Queen and long-term relationships was true, so…. 

There it was again. Out of the corner of his eye, that same bold splash of purple. When he looked at her, she motioned for him. Oliver interrupted--Karen? Keeley?--and told her to contact his office about setting up a meeting, then disentangled his arm as quickly as possible and headed for the lobby. A few minutes later Felicity joined him as he pretended to look over the exhibitors’ booths.

“What did you think of my speech?”

“I enjoyed it. Maybe not as much as some people.”

He couldn’t help the little jolt of elation at the thought that Felicity might be jealous. He did, however, succeed in suppressing a grin.

“I hear S&H Technology is the sensation of the symposium.”

Her eyes lit up then. “We’ve had some pretty exciting conversations, and I should probably get back to Curtis, but I also wanted to grab you before the end of the day. I have some information about our little research project.”

He went cold. Of course she’d found something. Of course he’d been right to anticipate the worst. He exhaled slowly. Whatever she had to say, he most definitely didn’t want her to say it down here. “Mind if we go somewhere a bit more private?”

“Lead the way.”

oOo

“Somewhere a bit more private” turned out to be a hotel room. One of the perks of being mayor meant getting a special room where you could run off for some alone time during your own fracking symposium. For the fifteenth--maaayyybbbee the twentieth--time on their way up the room, Felicity (discreetly!) turned to check that they weren’t being followed.

“We’re not being followed,” Oliver deadpanned from in front of her.

How could he even tell what she was doing?

“You’re not being subtle. At all,” he said as he turned to her, taking her by surprise and causing her to back up into the wall. He followed her right into what should be her bubble of personal space. “Is this sudden vigilance about what you have to tell me, Felicity?”

“No,” she mumbled, shouldering past him. “It’s about not wanting to be seen sneaking into a hotel room with the world’s most handsome mayor and end up on some sleazy gossip blog or hounded by your new groupies.”

He pulled out the key card for the room on his right. “You think I’m the world’s most handsome mayor?”

Unbelievable. “No way, Mr. Smuggy McSmugerson. Have you you seen the mayor of Metropolis?” She got the satisfaction of watching his smirk disappear. “Now, do you want to hear what I have to say, or do you just want your ego stroked? For that, you’ll need one of the groupies, not me.” She entered the room and at the mere sight of the bed all of the sleep she’d missed over the last...four or so years?...caught up with her. She couldn’t resist flopping down on the unbelievably fluffy down comforter. This was definitely not the kind of room they gave normal people. This bed was like being embraced by a cloud.

“I don’t know. Pretty sure they were interested in stroking more than my ego.”

It was like being plunged into ice water. Her mouth fell open and she clutched her arms to her chest. 

“I didn’t say that. Fuck. Felicity, I’m sorry. Fuck, fuck. Is there anyway you’d be willing to pretend I didn’t say that. Maybe rewind time back to when I was unlocking the door?”  She felt the bed sink under his weight. The genuine remorse in his voice kept her from fleeing. They were shoulder to shoulder, but she wasn’t looking at him. He nudged her with his elbow. “I don’t talk to you like that. I don’t talk to anyone like that anymore. I’m really sorry.”

She picked at her freshly painted silver nails. “I started it with the whole mayor of Metropolis thing. I don’t even remember what he looks like, to be honest.”

“He is very handsome,” Oliver said and she couldn’t help a watery laugh.

“I think we can chalk the whole thing up to us trying to be friends who are, you know, over each other. Might be too soon for that.”

“It will never not be too soon for me.”   
And goddammit, Oliver, how could he do that? Make her go from angry and hurt to all...swoony with a single sentence. And now they were here, in this room, on this cloud bed, all leaning up against each other, which was totally giving her tingles. And he looked so. fucking. good. in that effing suit, and he didn’t just look good, he smelled good too. And of course he was looking at her with that look, the one that just screamed “I still love you!” And she was just so tired, and it would be so easy to just give in. To lean in and nip at his neck right at the pulse point, right where he liked it, then take her tongue and….

“Nope!” She stood abruptly and moved to a safer spot in a chair like a normal person passing information to the mayor in the middle of the day.

Oliver scrubbed his hand over his face and she could tell from the way his forehead crinkled that he was mentally berating himself. 

This was harder than she thought it would be without Dig and Thea and, her heart seized, Laurel as buffers. If only she wasn’t so invested in everything they’d built together and could just...leave- go, anywhere. Maybe meet that cute mayor in Metropolis and fall madly in love with him. Or, if she didn’t have such a well-developed sense of self-protection. If her heart didn’t start throwing up warning signs and booby traps and walls any time she started to be convinced, even just a little bit, that he could be good for her again.

Get it together, Felicity.

“So you found something?” He was using his Mayor Queen voice, all business. Her shoulders relaxed.

“Yes. I spent some time on the darknet like a creeper, looking into the specific organizations you mentioned. There is absolutely nothing that indicates the Italians have had any interest in Star City since Frank Bertinelli...well, you know what happened to Frank Bertinelli. The Triad is the most technologically savvy of the... mobs? mafias?... Is ‘mafia’ a term used strictly for the Italians, or does it refer to any organized crime-”

“Felicity.”

“Right, irrelevant. Anyway, the Triad was the biggest challenge, but also the most fun and most hackable. They’re sticking to mostly East Coast and California-based operations as far as I can tell. I haven’t had time to go too deep, but a preliminary investigation indicates they’re probably not very interested in Star City. They’re actually a little strapped for cash and possibly spread a little too thin as-is.”

“And the Bratva?”

She noted the strain in his voice, but didn’t remark on it. “Right, the Russians. Not as digitally savvy as the Chinese, but they do like their online businesses and virus infested websites. Inconclusive.”

He’d gotten up and started pacing as she was talking, and now he stopped abruptly. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I flagged the things you mentioned I should look out for, and there wasn’t anything.”

“But.”

“But, there’s just...a lot of chatter. In Russian.”

“About Star City?”

“Well...maybe? There was a lot of chatter in Russian in areas of the web that could be applicable to Star City. The problem is, it’s all nonsense. Even with it translated it’s just gibberish.”

“You had it translated?” His eyes went dark and his voice got all Arrow-y. “Felicity, you showed someone else those messages?”

“Whoa. Chill out there. No, I ran it through a translation program I helped build. It’s not perfect, but way better than one of those free online translators. There’s error, but not this much error.”

Oliver’s eyes were glassy. She’d seen this before, way too many times. He might be physically in the room, but he wasn’t with her anymore.

She approached him carefully and took his hand, rubbing circles on his palm with her thumb. “Hey. Come back to me.”

When he let out a shuddering breath and scrunched up his eyes like he was trying block something out, she knew he was back in the present. She didn’t ask where he went. She’d long since learned it best not to.

“It could be code. Could you send me those messages?”

The bit her lip as a weight built in her chest. “I know you speak some Russian, but is there any particular reason why you would believe you’re capable of breaking a code used by the Bratva, Oliver?”

He scrunched up his eyes again, and she regretted asking. “I’ll send the messages now.” He squeezed her hand in response.

She’d forgotten she’d still been holding it.

“I need to get back to Curtis. When you get time to look at the messages, let me know if you need me to follow-up. I know we’re on Arrow moratorium right now, but I plan to stop by the lair tonight to work on a few things. Are you still there, or..”

“I went back to the loft yesterday.”

“Good!” She said. Probably too enthusiastically.

“It’s weird being there.”

“Yeah.” That was why she left. She never should have stayed. She thought she could be all cool and practical about it, but every minute in the space that had been their home had hurt. Every minute. “Maybe...maybe you could find a new place.”

He swallowed hard. “Maybe.” 

“Okay, well….” She gestured to the door behind her.

His arm breached the space between them, like he was going to grab her hand or stop her. In the end he just let it dangle there for a second before it fell. “Is it about Darhk’s daughter?”

She’d been so wrapped up in what his arm was going to do that the question confused her at first. “Oh, my work at the lair, yeah. I’m going to try to dig up some leads on Nora. That’s her name. Nora.”

“Nora,” he repeated. He didn’t say anything else, but questions were written all over his face.

And she didn’t owe him any explanations, but she suddenly really wanted him to understand. “I don’t want to, like, adopt her or anything. I just think it’s weird that she pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth. Both of her parents are dead and the last anyone saw of her was when you saw her in that cave, right?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, so what happened to her? You don’t think Darhk just left her there, do you?” The idea hadn’t even occurred to her. It was horrifying.

“No way. He was a psychopath, but he did actually love his daughter,” Oliver said, and his tone made her believe him.

“Okay, then, so it’s just this big mystery. You know how I feel about those.” That earned her a grin. “And what if one of his minions grabbed her and is grooming her to be the next big super villain or something-- it would be nice to get out in front of that for once, right? Or maybe...maybe she’s not okay. Maybe she needs someone to find her and maybe if I do that, and I help her, maybe….” She angrily swiped at the tears that were starting to fall. What the hell? This was not the direction this was supposed to go.

“Hey.” He stepped up to her and took her face in his hands. She averted her eyes. “Talk to me, Felicity.”

“I...I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s nothing.”

She expected him to push, to challenge her; it was what she would’ve done. She was ready to fight him.

But he didn’t. He didn’t say a word, just pulled her close and held on tight. 

She was so done with fighting him. She let him hold her.

“I’ll meet you there later,” he whispered in her ear. “We’ll figure it out together.”

Suddenly she was strong enough to step out of his arms. “Does that mean the Arrow’s back?”

He leaned in. “If we don’t get to talk anymore during the symposium, I’ll see you tonight.”

oOo

“You were gone a long time.”

“Not that long.” Felicity rearranged a couple of items on the S&H Technologies table. Her thoughts kept circling back to Oliver and those Russian codes. Her hand slipped and she almost sent a very expensive prototype rolling onto the floor. She stepped back. “Anyone important stop by?”

Curtis ignored her question. “Funny coincidence. No one could find Mayor Queen for the entire time you were gone.”

“When it comes to disappearing, Oliver’s a pro. What about Amala Nelson, has she come by yet? Because I definitely want to be sure to speak with her before the symposium ends.”

“Come on, Felicity. Give me something here.”

“Did you just stamp your foot? Because it looked like you stamped your foot.”

“You know, I helped you walk again. I helped you save the world, although no one seems particularly keen on thanking us. I left my job at a multinational corporation with pretty amazing benefits to work on a startup---granted, one I believe in and is basically my dream--with you. So I don’t think it’s asking too much for you to just throw me a bone and tell me if you just snuck away to have hot make-up sex with the mayor.”

From behind them, Felicity heard a man clearing his throat. She knew that throat clearing. Entirely too well. Of course. She plastered on her fakest, brightest smile and turned to the man she now considered her nemesis. “Hello, Mr. Dennis. How….” No, she would not say it was nice to see him again. “Here you are!”

He looked as unimpressed with her as always. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.” His lips pinched as he took in everything they’d brought to share at the symposium. “I’m assuming your little project here does not involve any proprietary information from Palmer Tech?”

Felicity turned away. No one paid her to put up with this man anymore. If he was worried, he could let his lawyers look into it. S & H Technology was entirely on the up and up.

Of course, he didn’t leave because one thing he would never do was take a freaking hint, but she was saved from finding out what else he had to say by yelling coming from a few booths down.

“No, don’t say you hear me, don’t tell me to come fill out a report. I’ve already done that! I’m here to talk to you, to try to make you understand.” The yeller was a man a little older than Felicity with shaggy dark hair and clothes way too casual for the symposium. His rant was directed at Chief Lance, who was responding to him too softly for Felicity to hear, obviously trying to calm him down.

Whatever he was saying the yeller wasn’t having it. He shrugged off the hand Lance had laid on his shoulder and started backing away. “These aren’t crackheads. They’re going for job interviews, man, and then they never come back. How is that not urgent? It’s the same old shit as always. Who cares if people are fucking vanishing into thin air as long as those people are from the Glades instead of Oliver Queen’s old neighborhood? We’re still on our own, right?”

Security was arriving, but the man was holding up his hands, assuring them he was leaving. Something he said was looping over and over in Felicity’s mind. She needed to talk to that yeller.

“Curtis, you can handle this for now right?”

“Are...are you serious?”

She was already grabbing her bag and trying to catch up with the shaggy-haired man. “Don’t leave the booth--the symposium is important. And if Amala Nelson stops by, be sure to tell her I’ll be in touch soon to set up a lunch meeting!”

oOo

By the time Oliver could escape the symposium and the constant demands of his new role, adrenaline had been coursing through him for hours and he was barely capable of rational thought. He’d seen it in her eyes, that she was going to follow the man--Jared Holloway, security had said his name was--and he couldn’t stop her. He couldn’t follow. He couldn’t convince goddamned Curtis to follow her either, because he kept insisting that Felicity had ordered him not to leave the symposium. For the company, as if that mattered, as if it were anything compared to her safety. Lance was as trapped as Oliver himself. He needed Dig. He needed his team, but he had no one.

All he could do while he talked about entrepreneurship and infrastructure and financing, was keep watching both the S & H Technology booth & his phone obsessively. Curtis was charming crowds, and Felicity never returned. In his head Oliver had mapped all the exits, all the ways he could sneak out and find her. He needed to see her and know that she was alright because she had chased after a ranting unstable man and had never come back to an event that was important, really important, to her company.

Because she wasn’t even returning his texts and Felicity always returned his texts.

Because there’d been all those damn messages from her father, that he’d ignored, that she’d  _ told  _ him to ignore, and Noah could mean trouble and anything could happen.

Because of the codes. Because all he’d had to do was glance at them to know that the Bratva was back in Star City and maybe he wasn’t seeing ghosts and maybe the moment he’d asked for Felicity’s help, he’d put her on their radar.

He clenched and unclenched his hands. He was ready to tear the world apart. But finally,  _ finally _ , one of his texts got a two word reply.

“Lair. Now.”


	3. Revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's some question about whether Felicity already knew about Oliver's involvement with the Bratva. I think you can make an argument either way, but she's never been explicitly told on the show. For the purposes of this story, we're going with Felicity didn't know. Happy reading!

She wanted to click away, to shut it all down, but she couldn’t. She’d wanted to know, and now she did. Now she’d never be able to unknow. 

When she followed Jared Holloway, she half expected that he would refuse to talk to her, but he’d been so happy that someone was finally listening. He told her about the lady who’d worked on his construction crew, about the kid on the block who’d recently dropped out of school, about one of his cousin’s friends. The one who had settled it for him had been the young woman who had taken care of his three-year-old son at a little daycare in her home until two weeks ago. Until she’d answered the ad.

Holloway had thrust a flyer at Felicity. It was simple black type on white paper, completely nondescript. It was advertising jobs in entertainment, food service and caregiving. All at pay rates five times what someone without a college degree and living in the ruins of the Glades could expect to make in their lifetime. The jobs were advertised as outside of Star City, but not to worry, moving costs were covered- and who wouldn’t want out of the city anyway?

To a woman like Felicity, it was so obviously too good to be true. But growing up in Las Vegas, Felicity had known far too many desperate women and she knew that to women like that--who could never get ahead, who were trapped in a city in which every year brought a new catastrophe--the flyer was a miracle.

Jared told her the flyers were all over the Glades. Not plastering bulletin boards and lightposts, but passed hand to hand like secret prayers by the dude on the corner who always knew what was up, or your favorite aunt, or the guy who was always one drink away from being fired at your job. And the people who latched onto these ads like some long-awaited salvation? They disappeared. No one noticed at first, Jared had said. Someone moves away, you don’t expect to hear from them immediately, but then you’d hear that their phone had been shut off, or they hadn’t posted on Facebook since they left, or something like that. Even then, it hadn’t really mattered because most of the people who left hadn’t really mattered to many people. Some of them, the neighborhood was glad to be rid of. But the daycare provider--Renisha--she had mattered to Jared Holloway’s little boy. She’d promised to call when she’d gotten where she was going, and when weeks went by, Jared decided to try to find her, only to discover that the skeletal remains of the Star City police force didn’t have the resources to take him seriously.

He told his story with barely a pause to breathe and at some point in the middle he’d taken hold of Felicity’s hand. It was as if he was afraid that if he didn’t speak quickly enough, if he didn’t hold her in place, she might walk away. His relief at being listened to, even though she wasn’t the police or, anyone of any importance, really, was palpable. It energized her. Maybe these disappearances were linked to Nora’s, or maybe not, but these were people she could help. She took the flyer and any information the man could give her about the people he knew to be missing, and she promised she would do something. He didn’t even ask what she intended to do, or how. Residents of the Glades had learned to set the bar low. Oliver would change that and in the meantime, here was someone who believed in her. Someone who was counting on her.

She’d gone immediately back to the lair, but she’d started her cyberhunt enroute, doing what she could on the phone. She felt sharper than she had in months; she was herself again. The number on the flyer led to a burner, no surprise, but Felicity moved on to the victims’ phones, which led her to the location of their last usage, which led her to security cameras, which got her faces. That was as far as she could go in the back of a cab. She was dropped off three blocks from the lair. Once there, it was facial recognition, a bastardized version of a particularly helpful Argus database and a trip deeper into the dark web than she’d ever really wanted to go.

And that was where she found Renisha. She shot off a text to Oliver to meet her while she dug a little deeper. Until she found Nora too.

Felicity’s chest caved in. 

There was a timer, and it was ticking.

oOo

Oliver sprinted to the lair. His office was temporarily located in his old campaign headquarters which was...convenient. And by this point it wasn’t really weird, the new--some might say optimistic, other’s might say naive--mayor running frantically through city, putting out a fire. The office was empty, and he didn’t hesitate before racing through the entrance to the lair. Her name was on his lips before he was through the door. He caught a glimpse of the hair she’d pulled into a ponytail- it had been down at the symposium--and he could breathe again.

“Felicity. Are you okay?” The words died in his mouth when she turned around. Her face was white, her eyes flat.

“I found Nora Darhk.” She rolled her chair aside so he could see the monitor. 

There she was. She looked smaller than Oliver remembered, curled up asleep in a dark nondescript room with only a single weak lightbulb lighting her pale face. There was a clock counting down to the end of bidding. The little girl was for sale. She had thirteen days.

Oliver had saved her once.

“Can you trace it?” His voice was unrecognizable to his own ears.

Felicity showed him a second monitor with different locations pinging every three seconds. Nora Darhk was in Dallas, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi, Minsk, Jakarta, Berlin, Perth. She was nowhere.

“Those messages I sent you--”

“They’re Bratva.” He couldn’t stop watching the clock counting down the minutes under the live feed of the child.

Felicity pulled up other feeds, other young women, though none as young as Nora. “They all answered job ads targeted at the Glades. There are probably others, maybe more like Nora that no one even knew to report….” Her voice broke and Oliver watched her shake herself back together. “If you’re right, and it’s Bratva, I don’t think they’re importing into Star City. I think they’re exporting.”

Guns and drugs were good products, but people were better. You could sell them over and over and over again. How often had Oliver heard that? Felicity was right. There were others. People who wouldn’t draw enough bids in an auction like Nora, but who would do just fine in a brothel or on a street corner. 

_ “Blyat” _

Felicity’s eyes jerked to his, not understanding the word, but interpreting the tone.

“Do I alert the FBI? ARGUS?”

Oliver shook his head. “This won’t even rate, not without some link to terrorism.”

“Won’t even rate….” Felicity’s lip curled. “Okay, then. Team Arrow it is. What are we going to do, Oliver?”

But he couldn’t stop watching the clock, and he couldn’t stop remembering. Everything he buried always found a way to claw back to the surface. There had been this one time, a shipment. New product, Iliya had said. Superior .  Oliver had opened it, and he was so far gone by then that it wouldn’t have even affected him if hadn’t been for the one girl with the red sneakers. The last time he had seen Thea, she had been wearing her favorite pair of red sneakers.

“Oliver. A plan?”

He flinched.

“Oliver?”

He couldn’t do this here, in front of her, not with his body in the present and his mind in the worst parts of the past. “I need time to think. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

Felicity did a double take. “You’re leaving? Now?” She lept up to block his way.

Oliver fisted his hands. “I said I need time,” he gritted out.

“Time?” She gestured wildly at the computers behind her. “Thirteen days, Oliver! Nora Darhk, all those girls, they don’t have time.”

“Felicity--”

“Do you know what’s happening to her? Do you have any idea what they’re going to do to her, what they’ve probably already done?”

And that was it. The breaking point. “Yes, I goddamned know. You’re the one with no idea. Do you want me to tell you, Felicity? Do you want me--”

“How?” She whispered. “How do you know so much more about it than me, Oliver?”

“Because I was one of them,” he shouted. He slapped his chest, right over the Bratva’s black sun. “I was Bratva.”

For a moment it was there, the appropriate response. Horror. For just a moment. Felicity breathed in. He watched her process it. He watched her accept it. He was both relieved and disappointed by how easily she managed it.

“You were Bratva. Of course you were. That explains the Russian. My money had been on another surprise sexy island lady, but mafia is another way to go.”

He stood stiffly, his muscles screaming for him to get the fuck out of there.

“Okay, well, this is good, right? That means you have contacts, friends. That guy we met when we were in Russia--”

“Is not a friend.” He threw up his hands. “It’s not like a fraternity, some harmless group of buddies--”

She snorted. “Your experience with frats must have been pretty different than mine.”

“Felicity, I’m trying to be serious.”

“So am I!” He leveled his gaze at her. “Fine, maybe I’m trying to break the tension a little while processing this whole ‘my ex-fiancee was-- is?-- a member of the Russian mob’ reveal. Actually, there’s a relevant clarifying question. Are we talking past or present, Oliver?”

“That is...a little ambiguous.” Oliver didn’t know where he stood with Anatoly or the Brotherhood at present. He’d hoped to never need to find out. 

“Right. Okay. I won’t even bother asking you to elaborate on that,” she said, though Oliver noticed she left a little space anyway. A silence he could fill if he chose.

He didn’t.

“So, no FBI, no ARGUS. Even if your Bratva connection wasn’t tenuous, Star City doesn’t really need to know exactly how connected its new mayor is, right? Where does that leave us?” 

She was pacing now, picking up random objects just to put them back down. He used to tease her about that, the way she could never be still.

“They’re targeting women in the Glades, so maybe I could--”

“No.” His mouth went dry and his fingers curled. “Absolutely not.” He crowded her space to stop her, or scare her. To shield her. “That’s not happening. That will never, never happen.”

“Okay.” She held up a hand to stop him. 

He kept moving toward her, because he expected an argument and he had to make her see.

“Oliver,” her hand was on his chest. “I said okay. I’m not an idiot. I don’t want to be shipped off and sold to the highest bidder. I just...we can’t do nothing, so what’s our play here?”

He placed his hand over hers, holding it to his chest. Before he needed to get away from her, but now he needed her to ground him. “We’ll have one. Can you give me until 9 pm?”

She nodded slowly, but looked uncertain. “What changes at 9 pm?”

He sighed. “It will be 7 AM in Moscow. My not-exactly-friend will just be waking up.”

oOo

True to his word, at 9:00 pm exactly Oliver placed a call to a number he would’ve rather forgotten.

“ Алло.”

He had to smile. Even first thing in the morning, even answering a call from a blocked number, Anatoly could be counted on to be informal. Friendly. He used that to his advantage, Oliver knew. How many people--discerning people--were lulled into a false sense of safety by Anatoly’s familiar air?

Oliver responded with the more formal, “ Скажите, пожалуйста, могу ли я поговорить с Анатолием?”

The other man’s booming laugh came through across the line, along with the sound of a glass slamming on the table. Oliver imagined the fresh-squeezed orange juice Anatoly insisted on having every morning sloshing over onto the carved mahogany table he remembered so well. “Oliver! I will know that voice anywhere! Let us use English, yes? It has been so long, your Russian will be shit.”

“I appreciate that. How are you? How is the family?”

“I am still old. And I am also thinking my long-lost friend Oliver Queen is not interrupting an old man’s breakfast simply to find out how he is doing. Are you needing a favor? Because I believe we settled our debts two years ago.”

Oliver had been considering this, how he could approach Anatoly without giving too much away, since he’d left Felicity earlier in the afternoon. “I don’t need a favor, but you’re right that this isn’t just a casual call. I wanted to update you on some developments in Star City.”

“Star City? Oh, that is right, I have heard something about this- they change the name, yes? To change image? This is a very Soviet thing to try, I believe. But yes, your Starling City. My friend, you know our business in your city also concluded two years ago.”

Oliver paid close attention to the other man’s tone, listening for a hint of smugness or deception- anything that might give him insight into how much he knew about the Bratva’s latest workings in the city. There was nothing but a practiced neutrality masquerading as joviality. Anatoly was a man who had perfected masks; Oliver had studied him. “I remember. I thought it might interest my old friends to know about a leadership change that has taken place. Namely, that I have been elected mayor.”

Another booming laugh came across the line. “Mayor! You have come far since we were last together. Of course, this is no surprise to me. I have always been confident in your ability to lead, no? My friend Oliver Queen is now mayor of the city formerly known as Starling. This is good news. Interesting news. Perhaps good for business?”

“Perhaps,” Oliver agreed.

“Yes, yes. This is something we should celebrate, the possibility of our renewed partnership. This is why you’re calling?”

“As mayor I am very interested in attracting foreign investment to the city.”

More laughter. “Of course. And I am remembering that the city of Oliver Queen is not, how would you say, ‘an easy sell’ to investors. You have many problems yes?”

“We like to think of them as opportunities.”

“Americans! I love your people. And you are my favorite of your people. It has been too long. We must fix this, yes? There is a wedding. You remember Masha? Masha is getting married. To a very ugly girl, I am sorry to tell you, but she is Iliya’s cousin, so it is a good match for Masha. You will join us. We will talk. There is too much to be said for discussing over the phone.”

This was what Oliver had counted on. He knew it was wedding time. Miraculous, really, how these weddings tended to happen like clockwork at the same four times each year. “I would be honored to witness Masha’s marriage to his ugly girl.”

“Oh Oliver, you have become funny. This is a change. I look forward to finding out what else has changed. I will send you the wedding information. You will understand that there is no time to get you an invitation, yes? Besides, I am using email now. I need the practice. It will be good for us to be together again.”

“It will. до свидания, Анатолий.”

“Very nice! Maybe your Russian is not so shit. Goodbye, Oliver.”

Oliver placed the phone on the table beside his bed, the one Felicity had picked out when they’d returned from Ivy Town. He hadn’t wanted to buy that table. He hadn’t intended their stay in Star City to be permanent. He hadn’t intended it, but he had felt it--a creeping unease that the life he’d wanted so badly was slipping right through his fingers, just as he’d always known it would. 

He had the same feeling now. He hadn’t gotten the life he wanted. He’d let himself dream of a future with Felicity, then he’d burned it all down. For a while he’d clung to the hope that maybe he could still figure out a way to get it all back, but some things were simply never made right. A year ago, that would’ve been the end of him. He would’ve given up, but it was too late-- he’d learn to hope again, and it wasn’t something so easily unlearned. He didn’t have the life he wanted, but he still had a good life. Felicity was still by his side, as his friend if not his wife. Laurel was gone, but she’d left behind a legacy worth honoring. His team was scattered, but Oliver still had a purpose. As mayor, he had a real chance to save the city. 

The phone call to Anatoly had been the right thing. It was their best chance to find and bring home Nora Darhk and the women from the Glades. Just like leaving Ivy Town had been right. 

But. 

Oliver dropped his head into his hands. 

But he knew there would be a price to pay. And just like always, he was certain it would be steep.

Anatoly had been too keen to see him again, far too eager to issue an invitation that should have taken Oliver years to earn considering their estrangement. 

This was how it always happened. He was always so certain he was doing the right thing, and he would end up in these impossible positions, making the only choices he could, losing himself completely in the process. Wasn’t that how he had become Bratva in the first place?

He could already feel himself slipping away.

oOo

“I’d just like to point out that it was your idea to get some work in tonight, despite the fact that I’ve told you repeatedly that I don’t appreciate being dragged into your workaholic mania.”

“What?” Felicity looked up from the email she’d been composing to Ms. Nelson and another potential investor from the symposium. Curtis was curled up on her sofa wrapped in her fluffiest teal blanket, even though it was the dead of summer.

At her raised eyebrow, Curtis stuck out his chin defiantly and held up his spoon. “The ice cream is making me cold. The blanket balances things out. And don’t change the subject.”

“Which was?”

“How you pulled me away from a perfectly good America’s Next Top Model marathon so we could debrief about the symposium--which wouldn’t even be necessary, by the way, if you hadn’t bailed on me under mysterious circumstances--but now that I’m here you are completely distracted by that.” He cocked his head toward her octopus clock, the one her mother sent when she learned Felicity was moving back to the townhouse. 

“You know Lord Squidly makes me happy. Besides, I’m not distracted. I am just about to send this extremely important email. I’m copying you on it.”

“That’s nice. It only took you three and a half hours to write it. So why ya watching the clock?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. Let me guess. You’re considering finally listening to me and just asking your father what he wants instead of being so stubborn?”

“What?” Her father...who could maybe help them. She groaned inwardly, but if Oliver came up short, she was going to have to track Noah down and it would be just like last time--

“ J/K. It goes without saying this is about Oliver, so I’m gonna go with him being out on a dangerous Arrow mission and you being worried.”

“Curtis-”

“No. I change my guess. He’s going out on a date, and you’re jealous.”

She glared at him. “Oliver is not on a date.”

“He could be on a date. He’s the most eligible man in the city now and the ladies were circling him today.”

“He’s not on a date.” And, yes, she knew her tone was betraying her. Damn Curtis. He was way too familiar now that they were partners. She should’ve insisted on buying the majority of shares just to hold onto her authority. She threw a beaded pillow at him. Which he caught with ease. Of course. 

She needed more men in her life without perfect reflexes.

“Yeah, probably not. I know you are totally and completely over him, but if the desperate panic in his eyes when he watched you chase that crazy man today was any indication, he probably isn’t quite so over you.”

“Curtis.” She flung her Wonder Woman pez dispenser at him. He caught it and popped a few grape pez into his ice cream.

“Then there was the way he was pretty much growling like a starved pit bull when I told him I couldn’t go after you because you had made me promise to stay. That was not the sound of an indifferent man.”

“I’m running out of things to throw.”

“You could try the remote. I wouldn’t mind catching the last couple ANTM episodes.”

Felicity emphatically hit send on the very important email that she had very carefully composed with vital input from Curtis that undoubtedly justified the way she’d passed the last three-ish hours. She checked Lord Squidly. 9:15. “We’re done here.”

“Cool.” Curtis reached over and grabbed the remote she hadn’t bothered to throw. “Paul’s working late, so I’ll just hang here with your tv. You don’t mind, right?”

Felicity rolled her eyes and snatched her car keys off the end table.  
“Ooooh. The plot thickens. Where ya going Ms. Smoak?”

She stuck her tongue out and slammed the door behind her, pretending she didn’t hear him yell, “That’s right! Go get your boy!”

oOo

It was almost 10:00 when she reached the lair. Plenty of time for Oliver to have had his important call with his sketchy mob friend from his secret mob days. More secrets. When it came to Oliver, she’d never know the end of them. Not that he owed her answers anymore. All that mattered right now was that this aspect of Oliver’s secret life could save Nora Darhk and everyone else who had been targeted in Star City. They were her focus. They had to be.

“Oliver?” The command center--that’s what she called it, even if no one else did--of the lair was deserted, but he was there. She could feel him in this eerie way that had never quite left her and that she feared never would, like her body had this secret Oliver Queen radar. “Oliver,” she called again, heading toward the alcove where he used to sleep. He was there, bent double on the bed, hand clutching at his hair.

“Oh, Oliver.” She was by his side in an instant. She felt the muscles in his back ripple and finally relax under her touch. He leaned into her and she let him. Of course she let him. How would she ever stop letting him?

They stayed frozen like that, her propping him up, for three minutes and forty-five seconds. She spent the entire time watching the digital clock by the bed. She should ask her mom for a second Lord Squidly. This alcove needed...something.

Oliver stood and he was his controlled, capable self again. Those three minutes and forty five seconds had never happened.

“I spoke to Anatoly.” Felicity caught the flat edge to his voice that only appeared when he was trying to pretend to be unaffected. “He invited me to the wedding.”

Her confusion must have been written all over her face because he shook his head a little and clarified, “It’s not really a wedding. I mean, it is, but there’s always a wedding. It’s a cover for the Bratva’s quarterly council meeting. This is my in.”

“Well, that was easy. I guess this means your standing isn’t so ambiguous.” Oliver said nothing. Her stomach hurt watching him stand there. With every step back, with every readjustment of his face, it felt like he was disappearing in increments. She wouldn’t let that happen. “When do we leave?”

He turned to her so sharply, she was certain he pulled something. “Felicity-”

But she wasn’t in the mood for him to waste their time with arguing. “I’m going. It makes sense. You can play...whatever role it is you’ll have to play to get the information we need, and I’ll be there for cyber support and investigatory back-up. Investigatory--that’s a word right? Not that you would know any better than me.”

“It’s a bad idea.” His words were firm, but his face was soft. He wanted her with him. 

“Not as bad an idea as the Mayor of Star City cavorting with the Bratva alone. Face it, if nothing else you’ll need me to cover your tracks. I’m already working on a story to justify you leaving the city. We’re a team Oliver. You need me.”

His gaze was intense and so full of longing that she had to look away.

“You’ll go as my wife.” His voice was rough, all the flat edges gone. Before she could protest he continued. “It’s non-negotiable. If you’re going, it’s as my wife. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”

Safe from what, she wanted to ask, but his face was no longer soft and whatever it was that worried him, she didn’t want to make him say it. He turned and when he faced her again he was holding out her old engagement ring and the band they’d used in their first fake wedding. She looked up at the ceiling and grabbed them from him.

She slid them on her finger and told herself the burning she felt where they rested was all in her head. Holding her hand out in front of her she said, “This damn ring is going to haunt me for the rest of my life, isn’t it?” She caught but didn’t comment on the ghost of a smile that crossed Oliver’s lips. “Fine. When do we leave for Moscow?”

“Tomorrow. And the wedding isn’t in Russia.”

“Okay, so where are we going?”

There was nothing small or ghost-like about Oliver’s grin now. “Bali.”


	4. The Space Between

All of Oliver’s appreciation of the irony that they would, after all, be returning to Bali had been spent by the time they were making their descent into Denpasar. Felicity had been nervous and twitchy the entire flight so after their layover, so he’d talked her into taking a sleeping pill. She was still sleeping beside him and without her constant stream of chatter and random tangents, he’d had no distraction from his memories, no respite from his dread. His thumb was rubbing the skin on his forefinger raw. It was happening too quickly. The timing was wrong--too perfect. It could all go so bad, and he’d encouraged Felicity to sleep instead of spending the little time they had preparing her.

He was restless in his entirely too small seat. He shouldn’t have let the flight attendant take his drink--he needed something to do with his hands. Felicity’s head kept bobbing forward, and he knew her neck was going to be so sore when she woke up. She should’ve thought to bring a pillow. He should’ve made her buy one on their layover. They should’ve...he nudged her so that her cheek could rest against his chest. In a few moments when they landed and she woke, there would be a circle of drool on his t-shirt; it happened every time. He smiled and carefully tucked a loose curl back behind her ear.

It wouldn’t have mattered, even if they’d had weeks to prepare. She wouldn’t be ready for the Brotherhood. Felicity, despite all she’d seen, managed to be taken by surprise by each new evil.

_ Let her make it through this unscathed. Just that. Please. _

He didn’t even know who he was begging.

“Felicity,” he whispered, trying to wake her gently. “We’re landing.”

Her eyes fluttered slowly, but the plane jerked as it touched down and she gasped and grabbed his hand.

“It’s okay. We’re here.” He rubbed small circles on her palm before letting go.

Felicity stretched, arching her back as she always did when waking up. The ring on her hand caught her eye, and Oliver watched as she blinked at it, confused. She had said that ring would haunt her for the rest of her life, but it was him it haunted. He couldn’t get rid of it--it had been his mother’s and, well, they kept needing it--so it was always there, a tangible reminder of everything he wanted but would never be able to earn.

He was grateful when Felicity was distracted from the ring by the drool stain on his shirt. She grimaced and her face flushed.

“I did that, didn’t I? Ugh, sorry.”

“Eh, I knew what I was in for. You’re like a Saint Bernard when you sleep, Smoak.” He dodged her when she swatted at him.

The seatbelt sign went off, he pulled her to her feet, and there was no more time for joking.

“Stay close to me in the airport. It will be our only chance to talk before our every move is monitored.”

oOo

Oliver’s hand was on the small of her back as they stood in the interminable customs line. He kept leaning in to nuzzle the top of her head or kiss her temple. It was all a cover, of course, to give her another instruction, make sure she remembered who she could smile at or who, if she found herself alone in a room with him, she should get away from quickly. He was crowding her, and her body had this muscle memory of the last time they were in this line, and it wanted to rest its head on his shoulder and wrap its arm around his waist and it was absolutely ridiculous. 

Her stupid body was a stupid traitor.

She took the smallest of steps away, just giving herself the tiniest bit of space. He pulled her right back to him and every part of her was flooded with warmth, and come on.

_ You are here on a mission. A dangerous and important mission involving people who are selling other human beings. You are here to do something good, because you owe the world something good right now and you, untrustworthy, lustful body, should be ashamed of yourself. _

There. She was back in control. Even though her skin buzzed from the feel of him.

“This is important.” His lips were at her ear. She thought he was probably well aware of what he was doing to her. Someday, when they weren’t saving anyone and she was a little bit stronger, she would remember this and she would make him pay. “They’ll have bugged our suite. They’ll be listening to us, watching for any sign that we are anything other than we claim to be.”

Perfect.  _ Just focus on the women. This is nothing, compared to what they’re going through. It’s petty and awful of you to even get annoyed. _

Getting through this mission was already requiring a little too much negative self talk for her tastes.

“If we want to talk, it will need to be by the ocean or in the shower.”

“Great. The Bratva will think I’m obsessed with shower sex.”

That broke through the tension Oliver had been radiating since they landed. She could hear the smile in his voice, even if it failed to make it to his face. “Oliver and Felicity Queen are big fans.”

“Which is a joke considering that one time we tried it, I ended up with a bruised tailbone and you broke your pinkie toe.” He had been such a baby about that toe. She’d teased him mercilessly, but secretly found it endearing. “Such a disappointment. In my imagination shower sex was great, but the reality was just...hard to maneuver. Have you noticed that that’s usually how it goes when you try sex outside of the bed? You think it will be all hot and adventurous, but really it’s just mostly uncomfortable. You’re like, why am I not just doing this in my bed….” She trailed off when she felt Oliver’s fingers tighten on her back. She looked up at his red face and ticking jaw.

“Probably not appropriate airport talk. Sorry.

“We should stick to the subject.”

“Right, well, anyway, it’s Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak. I was never going to change my name.”

He stopped short as they were moving up in line. “Really?”

“You thought I was?”

“I guess...I hadn’t really thought about it at all.”

“Does that bother you? Not that it matters I guess.”

“Right. Well, for what’s worth, no. It wouldn’t have bothered me.”

She was glad to know that. Even though that was stupid, because it was totally irrelevant. No matter how much the rings on her left finger chased after her.

“For the purposes of this trip, though, it needs to be Felicity Queen. The Bratva like their women submissive.”

Felicity scoffed.

Oliver’s face hardened immediately and he was back at her ear. “I am serious. Just for now, you have to play the part. You need to be like all the other wives. Anything less will draw attention to you, and Felicity, you don’t want their attention. Please tell me you understand that.”

She nodded slightly.

“Anatoly will remember you from Moscow. He’ll joke with you, invite you to tease him back. Don’t. Everything they do is a test, and if you want to get out of this unscathed so that we can rescue Nora and the others, you have to pass.”

“Got it. Vanquish my quirky charm.” Easy-peasy. Except she was back to twirling her hair around her fingers. Oliver noticed and gently tugged her hand down in his. He didn’t say anything to reassure her, though, just held her gaze with an intensity that stole her breath.

Suddenly they were next and Felicity was handing over forged Canadian passports. She had a guy who did excellent work. Megan and Jonas Harper were looking forward to honeymooning in Bali- it was their dream trip, after all. Felicity Smoak, according to flight manifests had just landed in Geneva- she was there on a research trip. And Oliver Queen was meeting with his stepfather in London, securing an investment in the Star City highway system that had actually been settled quietly three days earlier. Nothing for nosy reporters to see here.

They pocketed their passports, collected their luggage and walked out in the Bali sun to meet the towncar Anatoly had sent.

“Showtime,” Oliver whispered, taking her bags.

oOo

At the beginning of the drive to Seminyak Felicity had been all nerves, worried that they’d fail to get anything useful from this trip, worried about the price they might have to pay for success, worried about screwing up her role somehow. Oliver transformed when he greeted the driver- he became louder, colder, his smile more aggressive. He spoke to the man in Russian and Felicity was starting to feel like a figidity prop, but then Oliver turned back to her and though the wolfish smile was still there, his voice was normal when he said, “I told him my wife was tired after the trip and that he should not disturb us on the drive.”

She had climbed in beside him and he’d immediately snaked a possessive hand around her hip and pulled her roughly toward him. It might’ve been hot had he not looked into the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror as he did it. Any other time Felicity would’ve rolled her eyes and asked if it might not be easier for everyone to just pull out their dicks and measure. As it was she twisted so her back was against his side and decided that Oliver’s Bratva chauvinism would be good on this trip. If she stayed annoyed, she wouldn’t have the chance to get upset over this twisted cosmic joke of a return trip to Bali.

As they wove their way to the upscale beach resort town, Felicity began to relax. They passed restaurants too chic for signage and boutiques you could find in the wealthy area of any city anywhere in the world. The resorts were tucked away behind gates-- the tropical landscaping at the entrances a little too well-thought-out.

This wasn’t their Bali at all. It was nothing like the Central Highlands where they’d spent her favorite parts of last summer. It was gorgeous here, but there was no music, no dancers. She bet the resorts kept a tight reign on the monkeys. She chuckled.

Oliver broke character to smile down at her, his eyes asking what she was the laughing at. 

She tilted her head back to murmur, “Remember the monkeys?”

He groaned a little. The minute Felicity had heard Bali was home to a monkey forest, there was no way she wasn’t going there. Oliver pretended he was indulging her, but he was a liar, liar pants on fire-- like he didn’t want to hang out with monkeys. They’d stayed in these treehouses, which had freaked Felicity out at first--heights--but she got over it quickly because it was so surreal that she felt like a character in a bedtime story. She was enchanted. And no matter what Oliver said, so was he.

“I remember that they were proficient little thieves,” Oliver breathed into the top of her head.

Felicity stilled, and even though she knew the risk, she sought out his gaze. It was dark and dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with the roles they were playing, and she knew exactly what he was remembering. They’d gone on a hike that morning and were scheduled for a river tour later in the afternoon. Between, they’d returned to their treehouse where Oliver was making lunch and Felicity took a shower. She’d put her clothes for the rest of the day out on her bed. She got out of the shower and walked into the bedroom in nothing but a towel. Just in time to watch two little monkeys make off with her outfit. She’d shrieked and Oliver had rushed in immediately, only to double over laughing when he saw her, gaping and pointing after her clothes.

Then his eyes had darkened, just the way they did now, and he stopped laughing. “I think it’s a sign.”

“Of what,” she had asked, still shocked by the loss of her clothes, “that we should have stuck to the coast like you wanted?”

He came up behind her and loosened the knot on her towel. One hand gently grasped her breast while the other settled on her hip, his thumb rolling slow circles along the indentation. 

“No,” he said, nipping at her neck. “That you should be naked for the rest of the trip. Or the rest of the day at least.”

She had melted under his touch. She’d turned in his arms, wrapped her legs around his hips and let him toss her on the bed. They never ended up visiting the river that trip. The monkeys had the right idea.

That had been their Bali.

Finally, the driver turned into one of the gated resort areas. The lush landscaping made it impossible to form any impressions of the resort from the road, but behind the gate the path curved and revealed what Felicity had to admit was everything that came to mind when someone uttered the phrase “tropical paradise.”  The driver looked in the rearview mirror and said something in Russian that Oliver didn’t bother translating for her, but since their car didn’t stop at the reception villa, Felicity assumed he was telling them they were already checked in. They were taken to their room, which was actually a villa set far from any neighbors. Oliver, Felicity and Boris (as Felicity had taken to calling the driver since it was obvious they were never going to be properly introduced) followed a path of orchids to their door.

The villa wasn’t huge, but it was utterly luxurious. There was one bed, which was fine because it was ginormous and because Felicity had pretty much expected to have to live out every romcom trope on the books this trip. French doors at the back revealed a private beach that was all white sand and perfection. Felicity opened the doors to take in the sound of the ocean while noticing there was an outdoor shower made private by walls of vines and magenta flowers. Fantastic. She and her ex-fiance would be deceiving the mob in the most romantic place on earth.

Boris dropped their bags and gave what seemed like curt instructions to Oliver, who just nodded grimly and watched him go before immediately scanning the room for bugs and cameras.

Thankfully the Bratva had opted against going full voyeur--cameras would’ve added an extra layer of challenge they could really do without. Oliver had been right about the listening devices though. There were two of them. At least they killed the romcon vibe.

She held one of them up--should she destroy it? Oliver shook his head sharply. If that was how it was going to be, then she had a part to play.

“It’s so beautiful here,” she said in a voice that she hoped was dreamy and meek without sounding fake.

“Yes, I’m sure you’ll find plenty to occupy yourself.” He nodded to a pearlescent folio on the table by the bed. “You should check out the spa menu. And unpack before everything wrinkles.”

She stuck out her tongue at him, but he didn’t catch her because he had moved on to assembling his tiny armory (which he would have never gotten past the TSA without some extremely ingenious tinkering by her and Curtis). She kept up a constant stream of chatter about spa treatments and the impact of sea water on her hair while she got to work on her own weapons- an untraceable server, secure wifi connection, her devices. She had messages from Lance, Lyla, Dig and Curtis. Lance had begun entering names and last known photos of the missing into the shared database Felicity set up before she left.  If Felicity and Oliver could get reliable intel on the whereabouts of the Star CIty missing, Lyla said she’d be able to send an Argus team to assist in a recovery mission, though she warned it would be small. Dig wanted her to know he was banking leave in case he was close enough to the holding location to provide ground support and promised to provide remote support if he wasn’t.

Curtis’s message consisted of 3 palm tree, 3 tropical drink, 5 boy/girl kissing and 9 winky face emojis.

Felicity deleted that last one, then turned her screen so Oliver could see the other messages, babbling about the best makeup for a tropical environment all the while. Oliver nodded at her after reading the messages, and Felicity pulled up the auction feeds. The IP addresses continued location hopping and her efforts at breaking the encryption kept failing. She almost banged her fist on the table, but caught herself. 

Fine. Bratva cybersecurity won that one, but the site wasn’t impenetrable. Within twenty minutes she was able to cause a teeny tiny glitch--nothing that would draw attention to her, but would make sure that anyone making a bid in the next 3 hours ended up with a fried hard drive. 

Take that, perverts.

Only then, once she’d accomplished something, did she allow herself to look at the webcam feeds. There were four active, and the light was a little better than it had been before. Felicity zoomed in, away from the women--girls--and tried to focus in on any distinctive features of the rooms in which they were being held. She still couldn’t...the walls were beige...maybe, unless it was just a trick of the light. They weren’t all in one room, she was certain of that, but couldn’t tell if they were in the same….She zoomed in further on the feeds dedicated to Nora and Renisha. There were ridges on the wall...maybe wallpaper? Which was not helpful information without context. They were maybe in separate rooms possibly in the same building and those room might’ve had beige wallpaper.

That was nothing. She had nothing. Nothing that could help them. And she’d lost a day--more than a day!--traveling to Bali. She was in a tropical paradise living out a romance novel plot, and it might amount to nothing. By the time they were finished here, these girls would have less than nine days and Felicity was just wasting time. She jabbed at the screen widening her view and there was Nora and her hair was in two french braids. It had been down before, so who had done that? Who had sat there and fucking braided that child’s hair, like...like a mom would do, all the while preparing to sell her? Who did that? Who...she was not breathing. Not Nora. Felicity. Felicity was not breathing, she could not breathe in this room, in this place, she…

A hand on her shoulder. Oliver. A shuddering breath. In and out. One-one. Two-two. Her shoulders dropped. She could breathe. She could help them. She could do this.

She looked back at the screen. All of the girls on the feed had their heads turned from the camera. She wanted to think it was on purpose-- that they knew where the cameras were and that turning their faces away was a small act of defiance.

_ Be fighters. We’re going to come for you. _

Oliver squeezed her shoulder and then spoke. “Get dressed. Wear something nice, we’re having dinner with friends.”

She studied the girls one last time.

_ I will do this. You keep hiding your faces, and I will make it through this dinner.  _

oOo

Oliver took a moment to watch the footage of Nora Darhk on Felicity’s computer. He was glad she had it up--it would help them both stay grounded in why they were here. Necessary, because even with the ghosts of his past right in front of him, it would be easy for him to lose himself in this place. And in Felicity. As if he wasn’t already lost in her. As if the memories of their previous trip to Bali weren’t enough to do him in, Oliver had nearly choked when he saw where Anatoly had them staying. It wasn’t the single bed--he’d expected that. It wasn’t even the outdoor shower (because Felicity’s customs line babble was ill-timed but 100% accurate--he was done with shower sex).

It was that this was the exact place he’d planned to bring Felicity on their honeymoon. They hadn’t spent anytime on the coast before and while he wanted to take her back to her monkey forest, he’d also wanted to bring her here.

Sometimes Oliver was convinced there was actually a God and that He was a giant asshole.

Which was better than the thought that Anatoly was toying with him.

He clenched his jaw. The weekend hadn’t even really started and already the paranoia was setting in.

It was a coincidence. A shitty one. One that ultimately didn’t matter, and that goddamned auction site reminded him why. A little girl. They stole a little girl from his city. It didn’t matter what her last name was. She was his responsibility now. Maybe even more so because she was a Darhk. In a few short minutes he’d be meeting with the most carelessly deadly men he’d ever known and while he was doing that the people lured from his city needed to be foremost in his mind-- no one else.

Oliver shutdown the computer, and began to get dressed. Unlike Felicity, he didn’t need to give much thought to his clothes. It would be a suit. Even in the Balinese heat, the Brotherhood would wear jackets. What mattered were his weapons. A knife at his thigh, a gun at each ankle. He strapped on the holsters. Nothing would be visible, out of respect for the impending wedding. But to show up completely without weapons would be to announce your weakness. Oliver was already the prodigal. Weak wasn’t an option.

Felicity came back into the room as he was finishing with his tie, and she was lovely. She was wearing a silk ivory sheath with a lace overlay. Her hair was in a simple knot at her neck. She’d gotten her role just right--there was no sign of the bright Felicityness that he loved so much, but she was still beautiful. She’d chosen exactly right.

She smiled up at him holding a different shoe in each hand. “Which one?”

“It doesn’t matter. And why did you choose that dress? It shows too much skin.” She literally jerked back like he’d slapped her, and he cringed. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her she was beautiful, and that she should choose the shoe without all those straps because it would probably make her feet hurt less, but the men they were here to trick didn’t respect love in romantic relationships. They cared more about pride of ownership.

“You want other men looking at you?”

She played along, walked over to kiss his cheek swiftly. “Only you my love. Should I change?”

“There’s no time. Help me find our gifts.”

Confusion replaced hurt on her face. Oliver motioned to her equipment. They needed to hide and disguise it. He wouldn’t put it past Anatoly to send someone to search their room while they were at dinner. Felicity nodded and began packing things away in the secret compartments Curtis had built into their luggage. Oliver, meanwhile, pulled out twelve bags of miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups wrapped in bows. He couldn’t resist laughing at the face Felicity made.

“Anatoly’s favorite,” he explained. “Not available in Russia.” Oliver had learned this during their time together on Lian Yu. They didn’t often indulge in conversation about the things they missed from their old life, but when they did Anatoly’s answer had been “My old neighbor with the rotten teeth. The one who would smuggle me the American candy. Chocolate outside, peanut butter inside. Not the big ones. The small ones, the size of just one bite. That is what I miss.”

Felicity took a few bags. “Reese’s Cups?” She mouthed wordlessly.

He knew what she was really asking. How could a man who enjoyed children’s Halloween candy also be the head of criminal enterprise that sold young women and little girls into sex slavery? Anatoly reveled in contradictions like that.

Oliver led Felicity outside and as they made their way to the villa that would host the dinner, he was overcome by the urge to ensure that she knew, no matter what he might have to say or do tonight, he was still her Oliver. As the walkway curved toward the ocean and the sound of the waves crashing would safely muffle his words, he gently turned her chin so she would see the sincerity in his eyes, know that it was the real him speaking.

“You are so beautiful.”

She let her eyes flutter closed for a moment as she dipped her chin. They were them, for just a moment. She bumped her elbow against him, and they returned to their parts, continuing on toward the lights of the villa where their enemies were waiting.


	5. Masquerade

The villa where Anatoly Knyazev was staying and hosting the evening’s dinner was set at the farthest end of the resort property and was about five times the size of Oliver and Felicity’s. Also, when Oliver told her they were going to have dinner, he might have understated things. The path to the villa was overhung with lights and she could hear the pounding of drums long before the home came into view. Felicity kept looking up at Oliver for reassurance, but he kept his gaze straight ahead.

They were greeted at the door by a woman in a traditional Balinese dress who bowed deeply. “Mr. and Mrs. Queen. Mr. Knyazev is expecting you.” She gestured to a large room off the hallway. Oliver pulled Felicity almost painfully to his side.

The party was well underway when they joined. The drumming she’d heard was coming from a Balinese orchestra set up on the veranda leading out to the beach and there were dancers on a small stage in the sand. Felicity began to take stock of the guests, matching faces with the names Oliver had her memorize, but didn’t get very far before she was startled by a woman on stilts painted head to, well, stilt bottom, in deep greens.

Someone behind her chuckled at her yelp and when Oliver turned her around, she recognized the laughing man from their time in Russia. She smiled brightly in recognition then quickly toned it down.

“My two favorite Americans have arrived!” Anatoly clapped them both on the back. “I see my living vine scared you, my dear. I apologize. I must warn you, there are more. A silver one that is supposed to be the moon. And one of many colors that is jungle fairy or something. Makes everything very festive, yes?” 

His eyes lit up with delight when he noticed the bags under their arms. “My candies! I see you have not forgotten the things that matter.” He piled the Reese’s Cups high in his arms, and Felicity had to admit that Oliver was right--it was difficult not to find Anatoly endearing. She had to remind herself that he was a human trafficker and probably a murderer and many other very bad things. He led them to the bar, carefully hid his candy behind it and poured out three shots of vodka. “We will drink to my old friend Oliver returning to us.”

Oliver smiled and saluted, so Felicity tried to do the same. She probably shouldn’t mention that one time her junior year at MIT that had cemented her lifelong aversion to vodka. She raised the shot, then gulped it down as quickly as possible.

Oh god, it was worse than she remembered. Her nose wrinkled, but she didn’t puke, so...success?

She felt the eyes of the room on them which in and of itself was enough to make her extremely uncomfortable, but then the hand Oliver had kept firmly on her waist began to roam. And landed directly on her ass. And squeezed. Which, was, whoa, way out of bounds. It took all her discipline not to let her elbow land hard and sharp in his ribs.

Everyone was watching.

Fine, but she was going to force him to take a Women’s Studies course when they returned to the states. Or at least do the required reading.

Anatoly winked and said something in Russian to Oliver. Something lewd, she guessed, judging from the sly smile Oliver offered him in return. Yeah, scratch what she had thought about the old man being endearing.

“Come, come say hello to everyone.”

Felicity trailed along behind the two men as they worked their way around the room. Between all the conversation happening in Russian and the vodka hitting her pretty hard, Felicity was fuzzy and disconnected. She wasn’t exactly invisible to the other guests- they noticed her alright, just not in a pleasant way. She was something to be stared at, to be looked up and down, but not to be noticed as a person. Every man they met had at least one woman beside him, sometimes two. Some of the men were married and when this was the case, they were introduced to the wife. If a woman wasn’t a wife, she remained nameless, even as her companion’s hands roamed all over her as he carried on a conversation with Anatoly and Oliver.

So Felicity guessed she’d been wrong about Oliver being out of bounds before. Apparently public groping wasn’t considered a faux pas at Bratva parties. If this was how these men treated women they supposedly cared about, what did it mean for women like the ones she and Oliver were here to save?  The thought and the vodka turned her stomach sour.

Some of the men didn’t like Oliver. Even though she couldn’t understand their words, she could read it in their body language, their expressions. There were a few who hated him. Their jaws clenched and eyes narrowed when Oliver shook their hands, then they’d turn their eyes on her and their smiles would become vicious. Felicity could predict when they were about to greet one of these men by the way Oliver’s mouth curled up and his chest thrust out as they approached them. It was like their loathing amused him.

The women’s reactions were subtle, but no less interesting. With the exception of Masha’s poor bride--Aleshya, Felicity thought they called her--who acted as skittish and miserable as Felicity felt, the women all seemed to be familiar with Oliver too. Which, of course, right? From the looks he was getting, he had “history” with more than one or two of them, so maybe that explained the animosity from some of the men. She wished she could go back in time and tell Island Oliver to try keeping it in his pants occasionally. Geeze.

Felicity had been ready for the men. She’d expected the women. It was Oliver that took her by surprise. He stood taller among these men. They leered at her, and he folded his arms--not to intimidate them, but almost like he was encouraging them.  _ See what I have? _ His touch was rough, careless. He spoke confidently, fluidly, in a language she couldn’t  understand. He was playing a game, and he was enjoying it. It was more than just assuming a role for a mission. He was at home among these people, and she was here with a stranger. It shook her.

When Felicity and Oliver (well, Oliver mainly) had greeted everyone, Anatoly said something in booming Russian and everyone in the room, except for the stilt-walkers, began moving toward the door leading outside. In the sand beyond the orchestra and the dancers there were tables set up in a horseshoe around a large fire pit. Felicity followed Oliver to their seat. Anatoly gave a speech. When he finished, everyone downed the shot that had been placed in front of them. She was wondering how exactly she was supposed to make it through this dinner without acquiring alcohol poisoning when a couple of the stilt-walkers began working their way down the wooden path toward the tables. When they reached the fire pit, they lit torches, and--oh god, Felicity flinched--began a fire-eating routine.

The men began yelling loudly in what Felicity thought was appreciation. The women looked bored (except for Masha’s fiance who still just looked pathetically sad). More vodka was placed before her as the fire-eaters punctuated each speech. Felicity began to understand that every man at the table was going to have something to say, so she started dumping her vodka on the ground. She stopped trying to hide it when she noticed the woman seated across from her doing the same thing.

Oliver was next and there was no sign of the politician mask she’d expected when he addressed the crowd.  His speech was long and loud, and Felicity had no idea what he said, but whatever it was it got a laugh. Anatoly went last and then, blessedly, the food was brought out. A covered platter was placed in front of Oliver and while all the others were talking loudly back and forth across the table, he peeked at the curry in front of him and asked the server, “Was this made with nuts?”

“No sir, no nuts.”

Tears pricked her eyes, which was just completely unacceptable, so she couldn’t look at him. Under the table Felicity pressed her foot to his, a silent thanks. He gave no acknowledgement, just continued laughing with the small man on his right. 

The food was delicious and, after all the vodka, Felicity needed it if she was going to stay upright. It was clear no one at the table had any interest in speaking to her, so she let the conversation float over her. She tried to pay attention to the various dynamics between the diners, but her head was too fuzzy to focus.

It wasn’t until dessert was being served that her attention was brought back to the table by a slight deepening of pitch in Oliver’s voice. She knew that change. It meant danger. She froze with her fork in the air and followed his hardened gaze to the man across the table. Iliya, she remembered- one of the ones who hated Oliver. The man caught her looking and his smile widened.

“Felicity is your name? That is a very cheerful name. Tell us Felicity, are you a cheerful person?”

Suddenly everyone at the table was looking at her, and she felt like a snorkeler just hoping to see a few pretty fish, only to find herself surrounded by a school of sharks. The festive mood was gone, despite the fact that the orchestra still played and the dancers still danced. The boisterous conversation at the table had ceased and everyone was waiting for her answer. She sensed that she was about to fail a very important test. Beside her, Oliver was practically vibrating and his fingers dug painfully into her thigh.

“ _ Ostavit' svoyu zhenu iz -za etogo _ ,” Oliver hissed.

Felicity turned to him, searching for some clue as to how she should react. He didn’t even glance at her- he and Iliya were the only people in the universe.

Iliya, however, didn’t share Oliver’s singular focus. He ignored the man, leaned back in his chair and spoke once again to Felicity in English.

“It is just that you are a surprise to us. The Oliver we know has never cared for blondes.” He looked pointedly at a few of the brunette women around the table. “Or the ones with glasses.”

Damn That guy really knew how to hit where it hurt. She shrugged a single shoulder. “In English we have a saying about the kinds of women you date versus the kind you marry.”

This got a laugh from every man at the table other than Oliver and Iliya, who narrowed his eyes and leaned forward just a bit.

“Yes, yes, this difference exists all around the world I believe.” His eyes slid to the women beside him. “I’m thinking Oliver likes his wife more mouthy than his companions. But marriage is a funny thing too, Felicity.” He managed to make her name sound revolting. “Women, I’m sure you know, they just love reading all of the gossip on the internet. The people do not even need to be famous for women to want to know all about them. So they tell me many things about you-- about engagement rings that appear and disappear, about weddings that are interrupted. Are you sure you are married, Felicity?”

She pasted on a smile. “What a ridiculous question.”

“Is it so ridiculous? Do you know you flinch every time your husband touches you?” Her jaw dropped and Iliya’s face was full of faux compassion as he whispered loudly, “We know what Oliver is capable of. If you are looking for an escape, if you need help, you will find you are among friends.”

“Dostatochno!” Oliver slammed his hands on the table, half-rising. Though Iliya remained seated and calm, Felicity noticed the hands of the other men going toward their pockets--for weapons, she was sure.

She took Oliver’s hand and pulled him back down and towards her. She nuzzled his neck and murmured, “Calm down.” She turned back to Iliya. “I don’t know where your women get their gossip, but Oliver and I married in May. If you are staying informed about our city and me, then you must know this year has been...difficult. I wouldn’t have made it without Oliver.” She turned to him and ran her fingers through his beard to cup his cheek. Something inside her collapsed a little at the way he instinctively relaxed into her touch. She didn’t turn away as she said, “I’ve loved him for years, but this was the year that confirmed there was no one else I’d rather build a life with.”

She studied Oliver, searching for any indication that she’d done the right thing. He gave her nothing

“We’re here to celebrate Masha’s wedding.” Oliver was retaking the room. He clapped a hand on the shoulder of the man on his right (Masha, Felicity remembered; the small guy was Masha.) “I apologize for making a scene.”

Anatoly, who had been watching everything unfold with interest, immediately began playing the jovial host again. He clapped his hands and said, “Yes, yes. This is a party. We are all here together….” Then he switched into Russian and Felicity was lost again. She slumped down in her seat, spent. There were more shots, and she took the first one. It was, of course, a mistake. Everything that had started to come sharply into focus once Felicity had eaten began to go soft around the edges again. The competing Russian conversations around her were alternately loud and aggressive or far away, as if taking place in a tunnel. Oliver wasn’t looking at her or speaking to her, but his hands were all over her. His palm was at her neck, rubbing slow circles on her lower back, cupping her hip. His lips returned again and again to the top of her head while his hands kept scorching her skin beneath her clothes.

Felicity’s vision was blurring into flashes of color. And there was Oliver. His touch was the only thing that felt real, and she just couldn’t take it anymore. She stepped away, and his hand was left grasping at the air for her. Finally he looked at her and remembering Iliya’s words from earlier, she tried to fill her face with easy, uncomplicated love instead of the feverish confusion she felt.

Anatoly was beside Oliver, and it was to him she directed her words. “The bathroom?”

Anatoly’s answer came from what sounded like far away, “Inside, dear. Down the hall. On right. You will find, no problem.”

She didn’t look back at Oliver or any of them as she made her way to the house. She needed some quiet. And maybe a way to make herself useful.

oOo

They were talking about the Sochi job. It had been one of Oliver’s first acts as Captain, and he’d almost fucked it up by getting on the wrong train.

“No wrong train, no beautiful women from Belarus!” Andrey said with a wink and a raise of his shot glass.

“To Dasha and Sveta, and everything they taught us on the long way to Sochi!” Oliver toasted. His men shouted their approval, as the vodka scorched its way down. “Vlad was--”

_ His men. _ Oliver froze, his glass in midair. Everyone was laughing and shouting over each other, and they didn’t seem to notice. Everyone except Anatoly, who always noticed.

Oliver motioned to his glass in response to the other man’s raised eyebrow.  _ “Pustoy _ .” He stumbled away in the direction of the bar as though in search of more vodka.

Once there, he leaned against the cool teak and shook his head, trying to clear it. He looked around for Felicity, but couldn’t find her in the crowd. Abandoning his shot glass, he started moving around the edges of the party, searching for her.

She wasn’t there.

She’d been gone too long. Oliver cut his eyes toward the house. He knew the evening was getting to her-- the atmosphere, the men…the alcohol. It was getting to him too. His reaction to Iliya had been a mistake. Oliver knew the man, knew how much he hated him, but he’d let him get under his skin. In the process he’d given him an opening to go after Felicity and to make insinuations that were far too close to the truth for comfort.

They couldn’t afford any mistakes .

Oliver let out a long breath when he found Iliya flanked by two other captains near the dancers--at least he was nowhere near Felicity. Iliya caught his eye and looked pointedly at the empty space at Oliver’s side. Oliver shouldn’t have let her come. If he couldn’t have stopped her, and he knew deep down that he needed her here, then he should have found a way to keep her hidden with her computers. He should never have brought her to the attention of these men. Oliver was just about to make his way toward the house, when Anatoly approached.

“You call me. You fly all this way. Now, you stand alone, speaking to no one.” Anatoly handed him a freshly-filled glass. “This was always the trouble with Oliver Queen. Never knew how to make friends.”

Oliver took a breath and forced a smile. “My father used to say, ‘Business before friendship.’”

Anatoly chuckled. “I remember this. We have had this talk before, no? And you remember my answer. Friendship is business.”

“I hear you. I will handle it. But if you will excuse me-”

“Ah, the girl.”

“My wife.”

“Yes, yes. Of course, your wife. Irina,” Anatoly motioned the striking brunette with the famous cheshire grin over. “Mrs. Queen was not feeling well. You go check on her. Tell her her husband is very worried.”

Every muscle in Oliver’s body tensed, but there was nothing he could do without raising suspicion.

“She is a lovely woman. Your Felicity, not Irina. Though I seem to remember you finding Irina lovely as well.”

“I don’t remember her,” Oliver lied.

This made Anatoly bark with laughter, but then he turned serious. “I liked her when you brought her to Russia before. Very smart. Too smart for you, I am thinking. You know her well?”

“She’s my wife.”

Anatoly gestured to everyone at the party. “And you do not think wives can have secrets? Maybe their own agendas?”

Oliver was too tired, too on edge, too drunk, actually, to play games. “What are you trying to say?”

“Always so direct. I like this very much. I am saying only, that I know my friend Oliver Queen. I trust him with my life. His wife, well, she is stranger to me. It is not so wise to trust strangers. Especially when they arrive under such unusual circumstances.”

“I came here hoping to strengthen old friendships that might be mutually beneficial now that I am mayor of Star City. If you would prefer I go-”

“No, no, no. I did not say that.”

“Felicity is my wife. I know her. She can be trusted.” Oliver’s voice went low as he turned to look directly at the older man for the first time since this conversation began. “And she is off limits.”

“I understand. I am happy we have no secrets between us. In the end, friendship always wins, no? I will make sure your Felicity knows we are considering her a part of our family.” Anatoly looked around, then turned innocently back to Oliver. “As soon as she decides to rejoin us.”

oOo

Felicity had hoped that splashing a little cold water on her face would help counteract the effects of the vodka and jetlag and, well, everything. When her first try didn’t stop the world around her from tilting, she splashed more. And then more. And now she was bent over a Balinese sink rented by a Russian crimelord and she was still drunk and jetlagged. Only now, she had mascara dripping down her face and wet splotches on the silk and lace of her dress.

She was a disaster. Oliver wasn’t drunk. Oliver was completely unaffected by flying quite literally to the other side of the world only hours ago. She had insisted on coming, was determined to save Nora and Renisha and all those other girls, but she was nothing more than a prop here. Oliver would’ve managed just fine without her. He might’ve even done better, probably could’ve rekindled an old relationship or two and gotten information that way--disgusting but effective.

Which was more than she could say for herself tonight.

She’d wanted to be a hero. She’d wanted some cosmic goalkeeper with a copy of her permanent record to say, “Your actions caused the deaths of 20,000 people, but you were on top of that human trafficking thing. Gold star Felicity!” She was...pathetic.

She rested her head on the cool marble of the sink’s edge. She closed her eyes, but that just made the ground beneath her jerk sharply. Maybe she could just give in and collapse. She could fake a medical emergency, get out of Oliver’s way. She breathed in deeply and raised her eyes to the mirror.

Who was this woman with the racoon eyes and the defeatist voice in her head? Surely not her. Was she seriously having a pity party in a bathroom while the assholes out there were plotting to sell children?

Felicity grabbed some tissue and began dabbing frantically at the black smudges under her eyes. She ran her fingers through her hair and dried the damp spots on her dress as best she could. She could hear her mother’s voice-- _ “Fix your lipstick, hold your head up and do what needs to be done, baby girl.” _

Leaving the bathroom, she could turn left and go back to the party...or she could go up the staircase to the right and see the rest of the villa. The parts that where none of the guests were invited. Where, if one were to have any information about one’s criminal enterprises, said information would be most likely to be hidden. She didn’t have weapons like the ones Oliver, but she did have her tools. If there was a hard drive, she could copy it in minutes. Or-- and she couldn’t believe they hadn’t thought of this before, maybe jetlag had gotten to Oliver--listening devices. If the Bratva was bugging their rooms, well two could play at that. And Felicity could play best.

She couldn’t risk placing anything downstairs, not with all the staff and stilt people wandering around. Her fingers traced the smooth teak of the bannister as she crept upstairs. She could do this quickly, and it wasn’t like anyone at the party would miss her. There were three doors off the upstairs landing. The first door opened into a sitting room that overlooked the private beach. The curtains were gauzy and she needed to be careful how she moved so as to not cast a shadow that could be seen from below. She went through the room as methodically and efficiently as possible. There was a desk in here and she crawled on the floor to reach it.  _ Have a computer, have a computer, _ she chanted to herself. The heavy drawers creaked when she opened them and Felicity cringed. She held her breath, but the voices from the party continued with their drunken shouting and she didn’t hear anyone approaching the stairs.

She went back to the desk. The first three drawers were empty. The fourth was locked. Felicity grinned. The girls nights she’d been having with Lyla and Baby Sara since Dig left were about to pay off. Felicity would have to thank the woman for insisting that they balance their Netflix time with “practical skills lessons.” Felicity pulled the small lock pick kit Lyla had given her for her birthday from the secret compartment in the lining of her purse. Knowing she was pushing it too far as time away from the party went, she also knew she couldn’t miss this opportunity. Cursing the time she’d wasted in the bathroom, Felicity made short work of the lock.

There was no computer. There was an old fashioned ledger, though, and one of those fancy cartridge pens. Felicity peeked between the cover of the ledger and saw row after row of transactions recorded in the Cyrillic alphabet. 

How could she have known that she would’ve been better off studying Russian instead of Spanish?

No time for second-guessing her misspent university language credits now. She grabbed her phone and took quick photos of the last few pages of the ledger. She had only two listening devices with her. Going with her gut, she attached one of the miniscule bugs to the inside of the cartridge pen and carefully placed everything back in the drawer exactly as she’d found it. She pushed aside the uneasy feeling that the head of the Bratva was probably well-versed in counter-surveillance. She had a weekend with these people and just over a week after that to rescue Nora. Subtlety was important, but they were never going to win without a few bold moves.

She stood on her jello legs and moved as quickly and stealthily as she could to the door. Cracking it a sliver, she paused, trying to sense any movement from the landing. When she was sure she was alone, she walked out onto the landing and closed the door behind her. She should get back to the party...but there were two more rooms.

Bold moves.

The second room was a bedroom with blackout curtains, so at least she didn’t have to worry about being spotted. Her hands were shaking violently now from the combination of adrenaline and alcohol, but her mind was no longer blurry. She made short work of the room, checking in the wardrobe and drawers. There was no evidence anyone had even stepped foot in here. Maybe that made it a good hiding place for the kind of technology Felicity hoped she’d find, but she didn’t have the time for a thorough search.

The final room was Anatoly’s bedroom. His pajamas were bunched on the floor, which surprised her. She thought the man would be like Oliver, almost obsessively tidy. That just seemed to fit the image of mafia boss. Not that it mattered or that she should be wasting brain power on what Anatoly did with his pajamas. God, Felicity. Focus. 

The layout was like the other bedroom, only this was larger. There were blackout curtains, but the breeze was blowing them- there was probably a balcony on the other side. Neither the drawers nor the wardrobe held a computer. There was a locked suitcase, but there was also a cell on the nightstand. Making a quick judgement call, Felicity went for the phone. Carefully taking it apart, she planted her remaining listening device inside. 

Her tech was good. Better than the Bratva’s, she told herself. They had to be too busy selling women to also be developing state of the art listening devices. Or ways to detect such a device. Right? 

Right. Okay, now for the suitcase. There was a creaking on the landing, and Felicity nearly shrieked. It could just be the wind. Still, she slid her lock picks back into their compartment and eased her way to the door.

Just as she about to turn the handle, the door flew open and nearly slammed into her face. When Felicity brought down the hands she’d thrown up to protect herself, she was confronted with a brunette in a slinky dress that she’d met earlier today.

“Mrs. Queen, you’re husband is very worried about you. You keep him waiting. Tell me, what is it you are finding in here?”


	6. Collision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNING* I try not to do a lot of author notes/disclaimers, but I think a warning is needed here. There is some offensive language, so pretty horrible things said about women in this chapter. If it isn't clear by now, in my little Arrow universe, the Bratva isn't sexy--proceed with caution. And I should also apologize to any actual Russian speakers reading this. It will quickly be clear to you that I am not one myself.
> 
> If you're still with me, I present you with chapter 6!

This was it, how she got herself killed. Here in a luxury villa in the middle of a jungle paradise. By a woman wearing a silk dress with no bra...not that it should matter, because fuck the patriarchy and down with the tyranny of bras, but Felicity had faced many enemies and it just seemed more dignified to be taken down by one wearing supportive garments...oh frack. She was giggling. She was standing here caught doing something stupid, stupid, stupid and her brain could not make her body respond in any rational way, and this woman was not charmed, and Felicity had to do something, and….

“You’re Irina, right? I remember your name because you’re not married, at least not to anyone here, and you’re not wearing a ring. Not that you would have to wear a ring to be married and that might be a cultural thing or whatever anyway.” Irina’s eyes narrowed. Like a tiger. Like a braless tiger with the power to have her murdered. “I’m just saying you stood out because there are a lot of women at this dinner, but we were only introduced to the ones who were wives and...well, you.”

Irina folded her arms and said nothing.

“Sorry, I tend to babble when I’m embarrassed. Like now. Oliver told me over and over how important this weekend was, and I let myself get drunk. I just felt so stupid. I thought stepping inside, taking a little break would help, and it did, but then I got nervous that if I went back out there, I’d just mess everything up for him. So I thought I’d linger inside for a while, maybe check out how different Anatoly’s villa was from ours--it’s so much bigger. This is so dumb, right? I just...didn’t want to be a liability.”

“This is the best you can do, Felicity? Pretend to be stupid?” Irina looked her up and down slowly, just like the Bratva men. “Maybe you are thinking it will work because you are thinking I am stupid?”

All of the air was being squeezed out of her chest. “I don’t think you’re stupid.” Damn her voice for being so small.

Irina laughed and then she walked over and looped her arm through Felicity’s like they were besties, and what was happening?

“Did he tell you to make yourself weak, to be invisible to them?”

“W-who?”

“Please, we are both too intelligent for this. I know Oliver. I know how he is thinking. Did you accomplish what you hoped to accomplish?”

“I was just...hiding out. I didn’t...you seem to be implying that I was--”

Irina put her finger to Felicity’s lips. “You do not have to lie to me. You and I, we are not so different. And Oliver is wrong. It is a mistake, Mrs. Queen, to let anyone here believe you to be weak.”

Felicity pulled back. “You know nothing about me. Or Oliver. And say whatever you want, but I wasn’t lying. I don’t have to prove it to you.” She began to stalk away, but Irina quickly caught up to her and they were once again arm and arm as they made their way down the stairs.

“That was better. You do not know it yet, but I am a friend. And I owe your husband a debt; I do not like owing others. When we return to the party, I will tell everyone I found you sick in the toilet. It makes you pitiful, but it does not destroy you. You will tell your husband our that we are--how do you say?--even. And you will be more careful beginning now.”

        oOo

“You will have to fuck her from behind so you won’t see her miserable face.”

“Or in her mouth. Who cares how her face look when she on her knees!”

Oliver was in the middle of it all, smile frozen in place. He cut his eyes to Aleysha, standing off to the side, still close enough to hear. Oliver remembered her, trailing after her father, a man whose speech impediment made him a laughing stock. They’d called Aleysha “ _Balvan_ ”--not because she was stupid, but because her head was literally thick. Eventually, Oliver would come to recognize the look as that of a person who’d been hit so often that it had changed the structure of her bones.

Andrey followed Oliver’s gaze to Aleysha and nudged him.  “Oliver does not need to turn his woman over, just make her take away the glasses!”

Everyone laughed. Oliver pictured himself grabbing Andrey by the throat and…

“No, no, no. Oliver like sexy librarian!”

Vlad was humping the air. Vlad was not a Captain. Vlad was a nobody, and Oliver was ready to teach him a lesson. But then there was Iliya. Iliya, meaningfully eyeing the empty space at Oliver’s side. His lip curled, and he raised his glass.

“To Masha,” Iliya called out, “who was smart and married a girl who will never be beautiful enough to hide from him at parties like Oliver’s pretty wife.” The other men laughed and shouted as they drank.

Where _the fuck_ was Felicity?

Anatoly was beside him, pointing his glass in the direction of the villa. “Do not worry, Oliver. Irina brought her back to you.”

Oliver ignored the man’s raised eyebrow and allowed himself a brief glance to see that yes, Felicity was coming back and that she was all in one piece, before turning away. He needed to say something to fill the space, to save face, but Felicity was coming back from that house arm in arm with Irina, and he had _told_ her not to draw attention to herself.

“Poor dear. She cannot handle the vodka. But she is better now, I am teaching her.” Irina left Felicity by Oliver and crossed to Iliya, downing the man’s untouched drink.

Anatoly chuckled. “ _Eto to, chto proiskhodit, kogda vy vybirayete amerikanets_.”

Felicity’s hand was on his arm, and it was trembling. His spine stiffened, but he put on an easy smile and made a joke about Andrey’s grandfather and a goat.

He gave it exactly twenty-five minutes. He insulted, he laughed, he renewed old friendships. He avoided Irina and Iliya. He made Anatoly proud. And when those twenty-five minutes were over, he finally turned to the woman who hadn’t left his side, and he let his lips crash over hers. At first she was unmoving in his arms, but he wound his hands through her hair and nipped at her lower lip until she opened for him. Soon she was kissing him back. Painfully. He jerked her closer. There were catcalls, a few drunken encouragements, but all thought of where they were and why fled when she moaned into his mouth.

That had always driven him wild, that audible confirmation that she wanted him. His hand slid down to her hip, grasping it tightly. For just a second her pelvis rolled against him, and yes fuck...but then she was stepping away. She was flushed with embarrassment, but her eyes were flashing with what he recognized as pure fury.

She wasn’t the only one who was angry.

Oliver brought her right back to him, ignoring the way she stiffened. “What were you doing?” he whispered. He let his lips roam her neck, reveling in the way her head fell back.

“Investigating,” she whispered back.

This time, he was the one who froze. She opened her mouth to tell him more, but he kissed her, punishingly; his only intent was to make her stop talking.

He ended the kiss and spotted Anatoly telling a mostly untrue story to a less than captive audience. He pulled Felicity behind him holding her wrist, not her hand. He felt her stumble a time or two in her heels; he didn’t slow down.

Anatoly winked as they approached. “It is looking like you very much enjoy the party now.”

Felicity began to speak, but Oliver cut her off with the kind of lascivious look he hadn’t used since his failed college days. “The party has been fun, but we will be going back to our room now.”

Anatoly snorted. “Yes, yes. Of course you must go. I will see you in the morning.” The laughter stopped and he leaned in. “ _Vy pomnite, kto spas tebya_.”

No, Oliver would never forget who saved him. He gave him a short wave and led Felicity through the house and back to the path to their room. Once the villa was no longer in sight, she jerked away from him.

“Oliver--”

He whirled on her. “No. Don’t talk.”

“I--”

“I’m serious. Not a word until we’re somewhere safe.”

She stayed quiet after that, but by the time they reached the cabin they were both seething. Oliver ripped off his coat and threw it on the bed, trying to put his thoughts in order, but suddenly Felicity was kissing him.

“I want you so badly. Shower. Now.”

He knew exactly what she was doing, but he had missed this, and he had...goddammit he had been so fucking worried. And her, in his arms, was right. It was the only right thing about any of this and he…he pulled away and now she was the one dragging him by the wrist. She eyed him up and down, just as he’d done to her at the party. She noted how hard he was, and she smirked before striding toward the outdoor shower.

No way he was going to let her use this to her advantage. Not when he was in the right this time.

He moved fast and she didn’t have a chance to get out of the way when he reached around and turned the shower on full blast. Her eyes widened comically when the water soaked her. It was completely childish, but she had kept him on edge all night. She grabbed a bottle of what he assumed was extremely expensive shampoo and squirted it all over him.

“Damn it Felicity, you got that in my eyes.” He stepped under the shower trying to wash the shampoo out of his stinging eyes.

“You drenched me. And you shushed me. And you had your hands and lips and,” she waved at his body, “everything all over me. In front of all those people.”

Oliver blinked against the water streaming down his face. “Yeah, well now I’m drenched too. And shushing you? That’s what you’re angry about? Because let me tell you Felicity…” he trailed off as he opened his eyes and saw exactly what the water had done to her white dress- namely, made it completely transparent. Her chest was heaving from yelling at him and the demure little wife from earlier in the night was gone. This was Felicity. Earlier she had kissed him back and now she was….

No. No. She had gone rogue. She had put their mission at risk. Herself at risk.

“You snooping around that villa was not part of the plan. Do you have any idea how stupid that was? Did Irina catch you?”

“It’s called improvising, Oliver. It’s called using my brain--”

“If you think that was using your brain--”

“And it paid off. Aren’t you even interested in what I found?”

“You found something?” Searching Anatoly’s place hadn’t been part of the plan not because it hadn’t occurred to Oliver, but because he knew Anatoly too well. The man kept business, at least any tangible evidence of it far away from where he slept. He couldn’t believe something would’ve been left for anyone to find.

“A ledger. I have photos on my phone. It’s in Russian, so you’ll have to look at it to see what it is.”

“It’s nothing.”

“How do you--”

“If it’s anything, it’s a trap.”

Felicity bit her lip. “A trap?”

“A test, false information. A way to weed out a mole. A trap, Felicity. Do you think these men are idiots. Do you think they’re playing--”

She scoffed. “Yes. Yes, playing seems exactly the word to describe what you were doing tonight. So I did something. That clock keeps counting down for Nora, and we only have a weekend here, so excuse me if I wanted to do something a little more productive than relive my frat days with my old mob buddies.”

He ran his hand through his hair and wished there was something more solid out here that he could punch. Why was she refusing to understand? “I wasn’t wasting time. You don’t know how this works. I do. If we want information, reliable information, then we have to be patient.”

“Patient? Oliver, we have two days--”

“In the Bratva, everything is about relationships. Right now, they don’t trust me. Me drinking with them and laughing at their nasty jokes, that’s what earns their trust. You could have ruined that.” He hesitated. “Did you ruin that? You never answered my question about Irina.”

Now she was biting her lip and twisting her hair. No. No, no,no,no,no.

“She caught me coming out of Anatoly’s room.”

The ground tilted beneath him. “Wh--then what are we even doing here? Felicity, they are plotting your death right now.” How quickly could they get to the airport? Would it even be possible without anyone knowing? They were fucked. This mission was fucked.

“Wait, would you listen to me?”

He shook her off. “I’m listening,” he hissed, “but I don’t see how there’s anything you could say that doesn’t end with you having destroyed any hope of rescuing those girls you say you care so much about.”

She staggered back, face drained of color, and he… he wanted to take it back. He wanted to tell her there was still a way to fix this, even if it wasn’t true. He reached for her, but she slapped his hand away.

She wouldn’t look at him as she spoke. “Irina says she owed you a debt. She says she won’t tell. She says you’re even now. And that she’s my friend.”

Oliver barked out a laugh...but, she had owed him. Big. He raked a hand through his wet hair. He had been out of the loop too long; he didn’t know.... There was a chance that Irina would be true to to her word, but he couldn’t be sure. “Irina is not your friend.”

“I’m not an idiot, Oliver. I don’t trust anyone here.”

“Including me, apparently.” And yeah, he was getting loud

“Well I have my reasons!”

Felicity shook her head like she was stunned, but she didn’t take it back.

She had her reasons. Okay. He took a long breath. Okay.

When he could speak again, his words were slow and hard. “You’re going to have to get over them. There’s no way we get out of this alive, much less help anyone else, if we can’t work like a team.”

“We’re going to stay?”

“Do you want to go?

“No,” she answered quickly.

“Then we’ll stay and hope no one ends up dead.”

She nodded, and there was something about the way she did it that touched a nerve. It was just too easy. She might’ve just painted a target on her back, and she was….

“Why are you acting like this is nothing?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You have no idea how badly this could--”

“I do, okay? I do.”

“Then what were you thinking, Felicity? What were you thinking?”

Her lips were pursed, and what the fuck was wrong with her? Why would she be so reckless? And then it hit him, another conversation in another hotel room.

“Is this about last spring?”

“Shut up, Oliver.”

“That’s it, isn’t? Oh, Felicity,” he sneered. “Oh, you have picked the wrong place and the wrong people to try to play out some little redemption arc.”

“Shut up, Oliver,” she screamed.

She screamed, and that’s why he did it. Screaming could be heard over the shower. So he covered her mouth. Because they had no room for a single mistake more.

Her eyes went wild, and she pushed him away. “Stop it.”

“Stop what? Trying to protect you from yourself?”

“Stop trying to intimidate me. Stop talking to me like I’m a child. Stop _fucking_ touching me. Stop. Being. One of them.”

He blinked. She was shaking and he couldn’t tell anymore if she was cold from the water, or angry, or scared.

Of him.

She wrapped her arms around herself.

She was finally seeing him.

“I’m going to bed,” he whispered through the thickness in his throat. And left her to shiver.

oOo

Felicity was completely exposed, standing there in her deluged dress under the Bali stars.

They were different here, the constellations. And no North Star.

What had she done?

She grabbed a towel, the pajamas she’d had the foresight to leave by the shower.

She’d been so proud to find something, but Oliver said...the bugs. She put her head in her hands. She was going to have to tell him about the listening devices.

She was an idiot.

She was going to get them killed.

She was going to condemn Nora and Renisha and all the others to life in slavery.

But he had been….

She wanted to help, but she just...hurt. She hurt everyone.

She hurt.

She didn’t even bother trying to counting her breaths. She turned off the water. They had wasted so much water, she had wasted….

She put on her pajamas, and she went back to the room.

He was in the bed, and he took up most of it, because Oliver always took up so much space. But there was still enough for her, and she crawled in, so careful not to touch him. He was only pretending to sleep.

She would let him. But she wouldn’t just...she couldn’t just leave it all like this.

When she spoke it was less than a whisper. Too soft for the listening devices. Too soft, maybe, for him to hear.

“I’ll do better. Tomorrow, we’ll do better.”


	7. Ghost Stories

Felicity woke up alone. She almost always did when she was with Oliver; he never slept a full night and he definitely didn’t linger in bed. Her head was pounding and it felt like something had died in her mouth. She flung her arm over her eyes to block the sun, but then she remembered where she was and why. She bolted up.

Mistake.

Hand over her mouth, she barely made it to the bathroom in time. She was too old for this. Too smart. And all of the events of the previous night were replaying on a fun little loop in her head. Everything she’d said and done. They had less than forty-eight hours to redeem this trip, but she didn’t see how she’d ever lift her head from this toilet much less….

A glass full of muddy liquid with an all-too-familiar smell appeared in front of her, and Felicity pushed it out of the way so she could retch again. When she was able to raise her head, there was Oliver--fresh from the shower and still holding out the glass.

“Are those island herbs? You still have those? You travel with them?”

He forced the glass into her hand. “You look green.”

And he looked as handsome as ever, of course. “Yeah, well,” she croaked, “I probably should’ve told you before--vodka and I are old enemies.”

“Drink it and get dressed. We’re having breakfast on the beach.”

She watched him go from her pathetic perch on the tiled floor. He was speaking to her, so that was something. Not enough to stop her from reliving every word they’d flung at each other last night, but something. She eyed the glass in her hand. She was not a fan of Oliver’s special island blend, but she was also desperate. She closed her eyes, pinched her nose and chugged.

oOo

She found Oliver under a cabana on their private beach. She took the seat across from him and fiddled with the domed cover over the plate in front of her.

“Feeling better?”

She was, actually. She should have Caitlin analyze those herbs--why had she never thought of that? Maybe they could be made into a pill and then you could have all the benefit with none of the smell and…. Oliver cleared his throat; she finally met his gaze.

“It’s safe to talk here,” he reassured her.

“I’m sorry,” the words poured out. “I’m so sorry. Oliver...are we going to be okay? Is it even safe for us here? Did I--did I really ruin everyth--?”

“Felicity--”

“Because I’ll do anything, _anything,_ to fix it. I can’t just leave Renisha and Nora and all those girls, I will--”

“Felicity!” He closed his eyes for a moment then offered her a tight smile. “You didn’t ruin everything. That ledger you found, I took a look at the photos this morning, and it could be important.”

“But last night you said--”

His jaw ticked. “I said a lot of things last night. A fair share of them were bullshit.”

“Oliver--”

He looked around the beach, then leaned in and spoke quickly. “We don’t have time for a full recap of everything that went down last night. We were both drunk and out of our element.”

He hadn’t seemed out of his element at all, which had been part of the problem, but she kept quiet. He was right, they didn’t have time for any of this.

“But I do need to ask--did you mean what you said about not trusting me?”

She winced. “I trust you,” she whispered and the way he slumped when she did, the relief in that tiny movement, oh it made her heart ache.

“Okay then. We can’t let them get in our heads Felicity. If they do, they’ll win.”

She nodded.

“The ledger documents shipments, addresses where imports and exports are received around the world. It could be a trap, but it would be a pretty elaborate one--putting something like that together would take a lot of work.”

She could finally breathe again. “I could send the addresses to Lyla--”

He held up a hand. “Not so fast. The dates on the pages you photographed were too recent to be what we need--”

“But, I went back at least ten pages.”

His eyes were steel. “You’re underestimating them again. Their business is global and prolific.”

“And they document it all in a handwritten ledger?”

“Global, prolific and old-fashioned. The Bratva loves its traditions.”

“They should consider spreadsheets.”

He snorted, but then turned serious. “The reception tonight will be my best chance to sneak back into Anatoly’s villa and find the missing pages.”

“I know where it is, should I-”

“NO.” He took a breath. “I’ll be able to translate, so I’ll be able to find the correct transactions more quickly than you. Besides, after last night your absence will be noticed. If they see you there, though, they’ll assume I’m there too.”

“Okay,” she wasn’t going to fight with him again. “What about Irina? How worried should we be?”

“Worried. We can’t let our guard down.” He raked a hand through his hair. “This where having a bigger team around so someone could be devoted to surveillance would be helpful.”

She winced again.

“ _Felicity._ What now?”

“Um...so, this is probably a good time to mention that I...plantedbugsinAnatoly’spenandcell.”

“You what?”

She shrugged carefully. “Planted listening devices in Anatoly’s pen and cell phone? Surveillance, right? Yay?”

She squirmed under his  stare.

“You are hereby banned from vodka.”

Having finally confessed all of her sins, she felt ready to eat. “Fair,” she said around bites. “But does it help to know that these were Curtis’s prototypes? Designed to avoid detection? All the recordings are automatically uploaded to my computer and you can listen after the Council...what are you smiling at?”

“I’d just forgotten how you could really get after some rice porridge.”

She wiped at a few grains of rice that were stuck to the side of her mouth. “It’s delicious and healthy...ish. I think.” And while he was smiling, she had to ask. “Are we okay? Not the mission, though I mean that too, but me and you, are we--”

“We’re okay, Felicity.”

She chose to listen to his words and not the sad tone of his voice.

Oliver looked at his watch. “We need to go change. The next few hours are going to be important. Keep your eyes and ears open, and be wary of Irina. Aleysha is probably the weak link, so try to talk to her. No one else ever does.”

Right. She had almost forgotten that she was scheduled to join The Real Housewives: Bratva for a pre-wedding spa morning.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to stay behind and listen in on comms? We could say I’m sick. After last night, they’d believe it.”

“I’m positive. I’ll be thoroughly searched--even the tiniest in-ear would be found. Besides, you’ll be more valuable with the women.”

“But what if it’s a trap and they ambush you?”

“What if they did? There’s no cavalry to call in. What would you do?”

Point taken. They were still on shaky ground and so much was riding on this. So she couldn’t tell him that he’d scared her last night. That she worried about how easily he transformed around those men.

Less than forty-eight hours. How much damage could really be done in less than forty-eight hours?

She made herself smile brightly at him. “Okay, well, if it is a trap and twelve of the world’s most ruthless men come after you, you know where to find me-- getting a passion fruit facial with my girls. Like I do.”

oOo

Oliver watched as the luxury resorts and Michelin-starred restaurants receded into the distance. His thumb was worrying his forefinger and he forced himself to stop. Last night had left him unsteady. Breakfast with Felicity had helped, but he knew they were in the worst possible position to be undertaking this mission right now. They hadn’t had time to prepare. They didn’t have a team. They were...still so broken.

He made himself remember the feeds Felicity had shown him yesterday. Broken or not, they were those girls’ best hope. They would have to be enough. This was his chance to finally make some good come of the year he’d spent in Russia.

He would not fail.

The driver stopped in front of a drab concrete building in a seedy part of Bali that most tourist would never see. It was disorienting, stepping into the dark room from the bright sunshine. An enforcer grabbed him roughly, trying to take him off guard. But Oliver knew the drill. He wasn’t intimidated. He was searched and then sent to a back room. He’d expected to find some second-rate lieutenant at the door, but it was left unguarded. He felt a tingle of apprehension.

It only intensified when he opened the door to find Anatoly waiting for him. Alone. Oliver looked at the empty table, then back at his old friend.

“They are coming,” Anatoly said neutrally. “I instructed Arkady to bring you early. Our time together is small. Please, sit.”

Oliver remained standing.

Anatoly chuckled and shook his head. “Yes, of course. Then stand. My friend, I need to make confession to you.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes. Every muscle braced for a possible impact.

“When you call, this was not the first I am hearing that you are now mayor. I was expecting your call.” Almost to himself, Anatoly mumbled, “Maybe I was hoping it would not come.” He looked back up up at Oliver. “But it did, and you are here. With your wife.”

“Why did you lie?”

“Why does anyone lie? I have my reasons, old friend, just as you have yours. And just as last year was difficult for you and your woman, it was also very trying for Bratva. Many changes. Many...challenges.”

“What are you saying?”

“Are you still my friend, Oliver Queen?”

His heart stilled for a beat, but his voice was strong. “Yes.”

“Good. That is good. You and I, we are going to need to remember who our friends are.”

“Anatoly….” But he didn’t bother to finish. The other man had already turned away, and when he faced Oliver again, his jovial mask was firmly in place. He tossed Oliver a bag of Reese’s Cups.

“Put them in the bowls,” he directed, gesturing to the table. “Snacks.”

Oliver crumpled the bag between his fist, but did as he was told.

When he heard the sounds of other men, Anatoly cocked his head to the chair on his right. “Now you will sit.”

Oliver did not miss the looks that passed between the other eleven Council members as they entered the room. He sat taller, looked them each in the eye. Dared them to comment.

Iliya took that dare. Sitting on Anatoly’s left, he asked Oliver, “And how is your Felicity this morning?”

Oliver ignored him, greeted Andrey instead.

“She seemed so left out yesterday, not knowing the language,” Iliya continued, unfazed. “I was sorry for her, that you had not taught her more before bringing her here.”

Oliver and Andrey joined together to heckle Masha about his wedding later that afternoon.

“Perhaps I should find her at the spa when we are done. Offer her private tutoring before the wedding.”

Enough.

“You will stay away from my wife,” Oliver growled.

“I remember well the difference you made for Irina with your English lessons. And look where she is now. I only wish to return your kindness.”

Oliver held tightly to the edge of his chair, forcing himself to stay in place. His jaw hurt from grinding his teeth, but he kept his face blank. Iliya would not bait him again.

He turned to Anatoly. “Will Irina be joining us?” Iliya had a point about her current position--from all accounts, she was the treasurer in practice if not in name. His question had the effect of breaking the toxic tension in the room. Everyone at the table quaked with laughter.

“Oh, you have become funny. A woman? In Council meeting?” Anatoly slapped the table. “You are making jokes now. This is making me very happy.” Shot glasses were placed in front of every man. The Bratva began their meetings with vodka, regardless of the hour. They drank together, then Anatoly sat, all traces of humor gone from his eyes.

_“Nachnem.”_

Without warning, Oliver’s vision tunneled. That word, it simply meant that it was time to begin, but the first time he’d heard it in this context and what had followed was burned into him as muscle memory. His hands clenched beneath the table and he fought for air.

_He’d been an enforcer, and content to remain one. Anatoly had found him in the underground boxing rings in Moscow, had given him a more lucrative target for his rage. Oliver had failed to make good on his promise to Tianna, had instead set in motion a chain of events that had gotten her parents killed._

_Even when he tried to do good, it ended in death._

_So he’d stopped trying._

_Anatoly was an old friend and violence on behalf of the Bratva was no different to him then violence in seedy basements. As long as there was blood. He’d been ready to burn the world to the ground._

_He excelled at his job. He was loyal. When he uncovered a hit on Anatoly by one of the Captains, his old friend had told him to come along to a wedding. For protection, he’d said. There was a meeting in a windowless room just like this one. Anatoly had started it the same way._

_Nachem._

_Then he’d said calmly to Oliver in English, “Break his neck.”_

_Oliver hesitated, but only because he’d been wearing his old leather jacket. It was tight, and he thought it might impede his movement. He’d removed it, walked around the table to Sergei, and followed orders. Sergei hadn’t spoken English, so he’d just sat there. It was so easy._

_“Push the body out of the chair. Take his seat.”_

That was how the American had been made a Captain.

This meeting began with much less drama than the one five years ago. Oliver pushed the past away to be dealt with some other time...one that would probably never come. Anatoly was asking for reports on territories. The men went around the table, discussing their projects and revenue.

It wasn’t so different than the meetings Oliver had held at QC.

When it was Masha’s turn, the man stammered a few times before he could get his words out. He had been tapping a pen against the cracked table in a nervous staccato until someone had finally shouted at him to fucking stop. Masha dropped the pen.

“Current events make work in the Middle East difficult,” he said In Russian. “However, operatives in Israel continue to do good business. It is making up for lost revenue.”

“Are the buyers happy? Has there been any dissension?”

“ _Net._ ”

“ _Khorosho,_ we move on.”

“Sir-”

Anatoly turned a hard stare on Masha.

“S...s...sir, I believe it is important that we discuss the events of the winter.” Masha gestured around the table. “We have all f...f...felt the repercussions-”

“That topic is closed.”

“But Sir, the impact on cyber operations-”

“I said it was closed,” Anatoly roared. Then a sweet, grandfatherly smile was on his face. “It is your wedding day, Masha. This is not a day for worry. As your gift, I am resolving this issue. We will discuss it again at the next meeting.”

A heavy silence descended on the room, and Masha didn’t attempt to challenge Anatoly again. Oliver watched Anatoly scratching notes onto a yellow legal pad. He’d bet real money the man was simply doodling, waiting for the temperature of the room to shift.

A problem with cyber-operations. That would interest Felicity.

When everyone had been made suitably uncomfortable by the prolonged silence, Anatoly cleared his throat. “Iliya. North America?”

“Eastern Coast operations remain stable.” Iliya leaned across Anatoly to look pointedly at Oliver. “The Western Coast, as you know, has had difficulties in the last three years. But we adapt. I have found the region to have many...disposable resources. We are working to convert them into a marketable product. It is a model we have used before, but this is American product. In some markets, that means buyers will pay more.”

Anatoly was still as stone. The quiet in the room was unnatural.

But Oliver would not be affected. Without bothering to look at Iliya he asked, “What’s the export route? As I recall, with human product the cost increases exponentially as distance increases. Could have a serious impact on profits.”

The brief glint in Anatoly’s eye let him know he’d just passed some sort of test. It was almost as satisfying as watching the color rise in Iliya’s face.

“Well?” Oliver asked.

“Always so budget conscious.” Iliya’s nostrils flared. “But not to worry. We use a transportation facilitator who excels at keeping costs low. You remember Zamira, of course? I am certain she would welcome the opportunity to work with you again.”

He went hot, then cold. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Zamira. Iliya was watching him with those lizard eyes and that wolf’s smile, and he knew the exact impact his words. Zamira, with the red shoes. She had really been there, at the baseball game.

But...Oliver had gotten her out. Before he left, before he went back to his old life, he had saved her.

He had saved her.

“She’s quite good at what she does. A ruthless negotiator. To think we might never have noticed her, had you failed to notice her. You really do have an eye for talent, Oliver Queen.”

oOo

“No, no, no. My baby, what have they done to you?”

Felicity flinched as Irina came at her with a makeup wipe.

“They try to use the cheap lipstick,” Irina shouted over the noise of the blowdryer. She waved dismissively at Aleysha. “They think we _all_ want to look like _blyadischa._ Here. Use mine. Imported from Paris. Smooth like velvet.” She made Felicity duck-face so she could apply the lipstick.

Aleysha was watching with tears in her eyes. When Irina walked away, Felicity leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “I liked the cheap lipstick better.” It was small, but it was the first opportunity Felicity had to get near the woman all morning--she had been zombie-marched through the spa day by a future mother-in-law that made Moira Queen look like a Care Bear. Aleysha flinched as if Felicity had struck her rather than try to bond over make-up.

Maybe she just didn’t speak English?

The man working on her hair tapped on her shoulder to ask her to lean back, then placed an aromatherapy mask over her eyes. Under different circumstances, Felicity might have actually been able to enjoy this. She had been massaged, manicured and given an honest-to-God passion fruit facial. That was actually a thing. What it was supposed to do besides make her face sticky was unclear, but still, she’d liked it, because she’d been fed snacks and delicious fruity drinks. Now she was getting her hair blown out, and she was tempted to ask the guy behind the blowdryer what sorcery he was using to make her hair so shiny and frizz-free in this humidity.

If she were on some sort of girls’ weekend, it would be really nice. Of course, she’d need some actual girlfriends for that. She should really make more of an effort to spend more time with Lyla. And Caitlin.  And...there were others, plenty of others who’d want to be her friend if she made an effort. Once she and Oliver had Nora and everyone safe and sound, Felicity was going to make it a priority.

A small voice in her ear made her jump so violently, she hit her head on the blowdryer, knocking it out of the hand of the increasingly irate hairdresser.

“Sorry, sorry,” she told him. He scowled and mumbled something in Indonesian.

She turned back to Aleysha, who was suddenly at her side.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

So she did speak English. Well.

“No...it’s….” Felicity held up the aromatherapy mask. “I just didn’t see you there. Did you...want to say something?”

Aleysha took several deep breaths, then looked around the room to see who was watching. She took Felicity’s hand and said so quickly Felicity could barely catch it all, “The wedding is here because the business is here.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t--”

“The business. The imports. They are here. Not Bali, but the region. Southeast Asia. It seemed like you might want to know this.”

Her mind buzzed. There were so many questions, but before she could ask even one, Aleysha was moving away to follow her mother-in-law.

She collapsed back in her chair. Did Aleysha just tell her that the girls from Star City were somewhere in Southeast Asia? Or had Felicity misunderstood? And if she hadn’t misunderstood, why would Aleysha give her this information? Because she said one moderately nice thing about her lipstick? What if it was part of something else, some larger trap? What if--”

“Felicity.”

Oliver.

Right in front of her. And he wasn’t okay. To almost anyone else he’d seem fine, but she saw the hint of wildness in his eyes. Her heart plummeted, and everything else was forgotten.

“I need you.” He was pulling her away from the chair. Her hair was still half wet. The hairdresser was shouting, and the women were whispering, but the world had narrowed and she and Oliver were the only ones who were real.

She held on to his hand tightly, not saying a word until they were by the water.

When it was safe, she finally blurted, “What’s wr-?” The rest of her question was muffled by him folding her up in his arms and crushing her against his chest.

He was hanging on for dear life.

“I need you,” he whispered roughly into her hair. “I need you.”


	8. Wrecking Balls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're tracking these sorts of things, you'll notice the total chapter count for this story went up to 13. Upon revision, this chapter really needed to be split in two.

He could have stood there, holding her, forever. In another life, one where they weren’t always on the verge of running out time. But in this life, they had work to do. A wedding to attend. He tucked a damp curl behind Felicity’s ear.

“Half of your hair is straight and shiny. The other half is wet and curly.”

“Well, yeah, you pulled me away from the hairstylist. Very dramatically, I might add. Oliver, what-”

“You can go back, finish getting ready.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll just go do that.” She threw up her arms. “I’m not going anywhere. What’s going on? What happened in that meeting?”

He still had one arm around her waist. Without thinking about it, he’d let his thumb snake under her t-shirt to stroke the warm skin underneath. He couldn’t stop touching her. She grounded him. She was his partner. When he left, she came after him. When everyone else left, she stayed. 

He could tell her. 

He even opened his mouth to try...but what would he say?

_ I saved a girl once. _

_ Except I didn’t. I ruined her. _

_ Now they’re using her to ruin others. _

She just stared at him, waiting. Her breath was coming in these short little huffs, and she was going to walk away from him.

A switch flipped. Adrenaline was coursing. Fight or flight. He knew the science, could recite precisely what was happening to the chemicals in his body. Could never be exactly sure what would trigger it.

_ Gogogogogogogogogogo. _

His body wanted to leave.

He stayed, and he tried.

“I...I know the person, one of the people directly involved with the trafficking ring. It’s someone...it surprised me.” No more.

“Surprised you?”

He nodded.

“But there’s more to it than that. Something that’s making your hands shake and your eyes all glassy. Something that made you come get me. Oliver.”

_ Gogogogogogogogogo. _

“Can you tell me?”

If he did...if she knew...it would be gone. She was the only one who could look at him and tell him he was good and make him believe it. He...he couldn’t lose that. What would he be without that?

“No,” he whispered.

Her face tightened. “Do you know what I can’t tell you?”

Nothing. There should be nothing she couldn’t say to him, but how could make her see the rules were different? That they were so, so different.”

“I murdered 20,000 people.”

No. 

He pulled her back toward him, but she wrenched away.

“Uhnuh, no, you won’t talk, so I will. I killed those people.” She was smiling in this way that made him ache. “An entire town, wiped away. 20,000 souls. Gone. Just...just finished. I think about them  _ all the time. _ There’s this blog, like a memoriam, and I check it constantly. So, like today, they were talking about this woman, Eleanor Danvers, and she had ten children and all these grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and she’d survived the depression and overcome all this stuff. She volunteered for the children’s hospital. Havenrock had a children’s hospital--it was small, but it was there, and Eleanor Danvers made teddy bears and delivered them to patients, and---”

No. “Felicity.”

She shook him off when he reached out for her.

“And she was old, really old, but she did this senior fitness program, and she was really healthy for her age, and she probably would’ve died peacefully in her bed. She  _ deserved  _ to die peacefully in her bed. And do you know what I keep thinking, Oliver? About those last few minutes when they would have seen the missiles coming and they would’ve realized there was nothing they could do, and do you think….I mean, do you think they had time to find each other. Like, Eleanor had a pet rabbit. She loved rabbits. So, do you think she had time to grab it and hold it so she wouldn’t be alone? Or all those great-grandchildren? Did their parents have time to crawl into bed with them and whisper prayers and...and  _ lie _ to them about everything being okay, or was there just panic and fear at the end--”

She didn’t deserve this. She was good, always. She did good, and the way she was just crumbling in front of him was torture. “Felicity--”  
“So you were right. These stories and these thoughts, they are _crushing_ me, and I deserve to be crushed, and it is making me reckless. And my first thought when Irina caught me in that room was that I was going to die. And for the tiniest of moments, do you you know what I thought, Oliver? I thought... _good._ ”

HIs blood ran cold. “Stop.” She was gnawing at her bottom lip and holding in tears, and...no. “You did what you did because you had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“But there isn’t always a good one. You redirected that missile, and you saved millions. Millions of lives, Felicity.”

She shrugged and wiped roughly at her eyes. “Yeah, but,” she swallowed hard, “but who was I, Oliver? Who was  _ I _ to decide the people of Monument Point mattered more than the people of Havenrock?”

Just, the weight of all of it; he wanted to take it from her. “You’re right.” She looked up at him sharply. “Who are you to decide? It’s not fair, and it is asking way too much, but someone had to.  And you did. You signed up for this life, even though it is full of impossible choices. You make them so no one else has to.” She let him touch her this time, let him wipe away her tears. “That’s what makes you a hero.”

She raised her face to the sky. “Hard to live with.”

“It is.” They stood shoulder to shoulder--her watching the clouds, him watching the waves. “Do you want out?”

She shook her head “I just...I want...to be worthy of it? Does that make any sense?”

“You are,” he told her fiercely.

She blew out a rush of air and faced himf. “So what is it that you can’t say?

He looked away, watching a crab as it scuttled out to sea. “It isn’t the same.”

It wasn’t the same.

She didn’t look disappointed this time, or mad at him. She looked...sorry for him.

“Okay.” She took his hand, giving it one last squeeze before letting go entirely. “Okay, Oliver.” She nodded in the direction of their villa, looking anywhere but at him. “Come on. There’s time for you to do some interpreting before the wedding.”

oOo

It was never going to work. Not their mission; that would damn well work. She’d left Oliver in the bedroom on translation duty racing through her recordings, hoping to find something significant. Even if he didn’t, she wouldn’t leave this island without something that would put her closer to bringing Nora Darhk home...wherever home was for the little girl. 

No, she and Oliver--they were what would never work. She winced as she jabbed a bobby pin a little too sharply into the braid she was hoping would remedy her failed blow out. 

And the thing was, she had known it. Those first two years after they had met, what had she repeated to herself over, and over, and over again? “You and Oliver Queen will never be a thing. That is ridiculous. Even if by some breakdown in the laws of the universe you were to become a thing IT WOULD NEVER WORK.” Then, of course, the laws of the universe had broken down and they were a thing. And then they weren’t. Until just now the piece of her heart that was still 7-years-old and living in perpetuity in the moment she realized that her father had left without even saying goodbye believed that it was partly about her. That if she’d been someone else-- someone he’d loved more, respected more, someone who wasn’t so goddamned easy to leave-- he would have been able to tell her the truth.

She had put herself on the line. She had told him her darkest truth, and he had been there. He had helped her. And she’d watched him open his mouth to tell her whatever it was that was wrenching him apart. She’d watched him be physically unable to do it. And she’d known. He loved her. As much and as well as she loved him. He wouldn’t be able to do better with someone else, because Oliver Queen would  _ never _ be able to get out of his own way. Whatever he’d done in those five years after the Gambit went down, he was going to let it define him.

He would hold the world at bay for her, but he would never let her--let anyone--do the same for him.

She slipped the silk sheath she’d chosen for the wedding over her head, careful of her hair.

She had been so close to following his example. But she was done. What had happened at Havenrock had happened. She couldn’t change it. He was right--someone had to decide. And yeah, it was fucking hard to carry, but she would do it. She would find her way. And she would not keep breaking her own heart, trying to make things what she wanted them to be instead of what they were.

Just a little bit of lipstick. And done.

Standing in the doorway to the bedroom, she watched him. He’d taken time to change and now he sat with the headphones on, hunched over the photos she’d taken of Anatoly’s ledger. He had decided to go with the three-piece suit, and the sight of him in that vest had always done all sorts of things to Felicity’s insides. She was still attracted to him--she had eyes--but for the first time in a long time she didn’t feel that spark of longing and hope that always tortured her when it came to Oliver Queen. She would help him help others, but if he wanted saving, he was going to have to save himself. She was finished lighting his way. 

When Oliver noticed her presence and looked up, his face was unreadable. She pushed herself out of the doorway and stepped into the role she was playing for the benefit of anyone listening.

“Hey, enough work.” She walked over and closed the laptop in front of him. “We’re supposed to be on vacation.”

“I thought I was clear that this was a working vacation. Besides, it isn’t my fault you needed to be rescued from your spa day.”

Right. He’d need to cover for his earlier actions. “You know I get nervous around those women.” The extra pout she added to her words made her want to puke, but at the same time, she had to congratulate herself on her acting. If she lost yet another company, maybe she could make it in Hollywood...or in, like, community theater. Maybe clown school? Did those really exist? Passion fruit facials did, so anything was possible. She would be googling this later.

“A bunch of women getting their hair done is very scary, I know.”

“Don’t tease me. Besides, I think I managed my own hair just fine.”

“Your hair looks beautiful.” He stared at her. “You look beautiful.” 

The sweetness in his words sent a shiver of sadness down her spine. He didn’t know about her newfound resolution. It would be redundant to tell him since they were already split up and she’d been pretty firm in her words, if not in her heart, about a possible reconciliation. What was she supposed to say--”Hey, guess what, now I really mean it”? But still, this was yet another example of Oliver breaking his own heart, and it hurt hers too.

“Don’t we have a wedding we need to get to?” 

“We do, but I think we have time for a quick stroll by the ocean first.”

oOo

She’d taken off her shoes as they made her way to the sea and was holding the hem of her dress to protect it from the sand and the salt water. She looked like a painting come to life; it hurt to look at her. She’d scared him earlier, really scared him, when she told him what she’d thought when Irina caught her. Even if it was only for a moment, it was a moment too long. He should’ve noticed how hard what had happened last spring was hitting her. He should’ve paid more attention. He should’ve….

And that was always, always the way of it. He should’ve. He didn’t.

And now she looked like herself again in a way he hadn’t realized was missing--at peace in a way he envied. 

“Okay, so what did you learn?”

All business. She was all business. 

He recalled the conversations he’d overheard and shuddered.

“Anatoly and Irina are having an affair.”

Felicity’s face conveyed everything he thought, and it was almost enough to make him laugh.

“But...he could be her grandfather!” She sputtered. 

“Power is always sexy?”

“No. No, no, no, no, no. Is it weird that I’m kind of disappointed in Irina? Why does she have to be such a....trope?”

Oliver had his own...thoughts about what Irina was doing, particularly in light of their history, but he just left it as “It’s hard being a woman in this world.”

“So...anything else?”

“Not really. Anatoly barely uses his cell, so most of what we got was from the pen. And Irina is...taking up most of his free time.” Anatoly enjoyed sex in his office. That was now knowledge Oliver had. Everything about this day was a nightmare.

Felicity gagged.

“So that’s it? The Bratva equivalent of celebrity gossip?”

He could hear the frustration in her words. “Hey, you got us the ledger, which is huge. And we know that if Anatoly is plotting our deaths, he’s doing it in his head, which is unlikely since Anatoly is a talker, especially in bed--”

“Stopppppp,” she groaned.

Oliver snorted. He smiled at her, but she looked away. Right. Business. “Anatoly’s worried about Iliya. There’s a faction that wants a change of leadership and Iliya is the one behind it.”

“That’s big, right?”

Oliver shrugged. “That’s Bratva. But….” Shit, he should’ve told her this before. “Something did come up at the meeting about a cyber operations issue. Something that happened in the winter?”

“I didn’t see anything obvious when you had me looking into them...and they didn’t move into Star City until the summer.”

There were so many moving part and so little time. “I think we should focus on the ledger. This cyber breach is something you could look into after this is all over. If there’s a weakness we can exploit it wouldn’t hurt to have a little….”

“Insurance?”

“Exactly.” They hadn’t discussed the likely fall-out if they were to succeed, but they’d need to. Soon.

“They did mention you.”

“Oh yeah?” Felicity raised an eyebrow. “What did they say?”

“Anatoly asked if Irina thought you were as intelligent as rumored.” 

“And?”

“She said no.”   


Felicity gasped. “That braless tiger bitch!”

“Wh--?”

But she was already waving him off.

He placed her arm in his, trying to ignore the way she stiffened. “They have no idea who they’re dealing with.”


	9. The Dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge, huge thank you to Peacefulboo for beta'ing this chapter.

Felicity and Oliver were escorted to their seats. Second row. Seemed a little close, considering the last time Oliver had seen the bride or groom before this trip was five years ago and Felicity had known them for less that twenty-four hours. They slid in beside Irina and the woman peered around Oliver to give Felicity a once-over.

“You braid your hair for wedding party. How casual and...fun. How American.”

Despite not having them killed when she had the chance, Irina was proving very easy to hate. Felicity smiled her fakest smile.

“But you do your best, no? With your husband dragging you away.”

Her heart stilled. Her disappearing and getting caught in a mob boss’s bedroom? Oliver, losing it in the middle of a spa? They were terrible at this. They were coming apart at the seams when people’s _lives_ were at risk, and just how many red flags did they expect the Russian mob to overlook?

But Irina playfully slapped Oliver’s thigh and said something in Russian, and Oliver answered in kind with a lopsided grin,and...were they flirting? How was any of this happening right now?

Another couple took the seats on the other side of her, and the woman--who wasn’t even a wife! (and yes, she heard herself)--had the same unimpressed look on her face as she took in Felicity’s appearance.

How was she supposed to know that the women who’d been walking around braless in mini-dresses for the pre-wedding dinner would go full red carpet for the ceremony? Besides, they were in _Bali._ She’d been reasonable to dress like she was attending a beach wedding, because what other kind of wedding would someone have in _Bali?_

Apparently if you’re Bratva you find the stuffiest hotel ballroom in paradise and decorate it like a Russian Orthodox church. Felicity shifted in her seat; as if the tortured ex-fiance, judge-y women and human trafficking men weren’t enough to make her uncomfortable, they threw in icons.

And how was it possible she cared about any of this right now?

“Are you okay?” Oliver murmured.

She was fidgeting; she forced herself to stop. “This place reminds me of the year my mom made me stay with Miss Helen from two apartments down after school,” she whispered back. “She was Greek and she had icons everywhere. No matter where I went in the apartment, a bunch of angry Jesuses were glaring at me while I did my long division…,” she trailed off as the ceremony began.

And, oh, Aleysha. She entered the ceremony sobbing, and she didn’t stop. At one point Felicity realized she was wincing and forced her face into something more neutral. No one wants a wincing wedding guest. They placed a crown on the bride’s and head, and it would’ve been really pretty, but there was snot running down the woman’s face and Masha was stammering through his vows and Evil Mother-In Law was shooting daggers with her eyes, and it was all...bad.

 _Do not feel sorry for these people. No one here deserves your pity,_ she reminded herself. But maybe Aleysha did. She had given them potentially valuable information. Felicity could feel a savior fantasy coming on, one where she valiantly whisked Aleysha away from her loveless Bratva marriage. She told herself to take it down a notch.

One rescue operation at a time.

After approximately 85 gazillion years, the ceremony ended. The good news was the reception was on the beach and Felicity was no longer underdressed. The bad news was, it hurt. Her scoff got Oliver’s attention, but no way was she going to tell him that this--the breezy white linens, the lanterns, the native flowers all set against the backdrop of the ocean--had been everything she’d imagined for them the night he’d proposed.

Well...in the hour or so she’d had to be happy and imagine things before they’d been, you know, gunned down.

Whatever. Boo-hoo, seeing a bunch of tables decorated with moon orchids felt like getting kicked in the stomach. Better than marrying the wrong man. Better than being taken from your home and held against your will by a bunch of monsters who wanted to sell you to other monsters.

_Perspective, Felicity._

A man whose name she couldn’t remember stumbled into her, splashing vodka on the rose-colored silk of her dress. Oliver growled at him him in Russian, and actually pulled back a fist. The man stumbled away.

Oliver was scarily on edge, and they had to find a way to be normal, because they were going to blow everything. “You have to calm down,” she said.

“He should watch where he’s going.”

She couldn’t tell anymore if this was part of the act or if it was all just becoming too much for him.

“Okay, well it’s probably not a good plan to start an actual fist fight at a wedding recept--”

Oliver pulled her back against his chest and out of the way of a group of men shouting and laughing loudly on their way to the bar.

“This is doing nothing to disprove my mafia-as-fraternity theory.” She nodded to a table near the bridal party where shots were being lit on fire, much to the very loud approval of the guests. They were having fun. They were casually ruining people’s lives, and it didn’t even faze them. How did that happen? Were they born sociopaths or had life turned them into ones? She jumped when Oliver spoke.

“They take their celebrations seriously. Tonight, that’s to our advantage.” He squeezed her shoulder and led her toward Anatoly who was beckoning them from the bar.

“Oliver! Felicity! Drink with me!” The older man handed them drinks, which they clinked in turn. “You have been thinking about our new opportunities?” He asked Oliver.

_“Eto svad'ba . Seychas ne vremya.”_

Anatoly laughed, but his eyes were hard. “Yes, yes. Tonight we should celebrate.” He turned to Felicity. “You will save dance for me. Oliver will not mind.”

Once again, the toasts felt as though they’d never end. Felicity had learned her lesson last time and didn’t even bother pretending to drink. Irina, seated next to her for the meal, turned abruptly to Felicity.

“They say you are computer genius.”

“Who says that?”

But the other woman just smiled. “I am very much interested in computers myself. Tell me, what is your area of expertise?”

Felicity cut her eyes to Oliver, but he was wrapped up in a conversation with Andrey, not paying attention to her. “Cybersecurity.” There was no harm in being honest about that, right?

“You are hacker? Like Mr. Robot?”

Felicity choked on a bite of papaya, but Irina laughed.

“No. No, of course not. You are only using your powers for good.” Before Felicity could fully process this conversation, Irina pointed to the head table where Aleysha and Masha were seated with their backs practically turned toward each other.

“You can see this is not a love marriage.”

“What’s their story?”

Irina offered a one-shouldered shrug. “Aleysha is a pathetic girl whose father was a pathetic man who died a pathetic death. She should be destitute, but her mother was Iliya’s cousin. It is all that keeps her relevant. Masha is a stupid man, who no one would want to marry.  Iliya needs friends. Even stupid ones. He gives his cousin, he gains a friend.”  
Well, that was disgusting...and as far as Felicity was concerned, a point in favor of taking Aleysha at her word. In her place, Felicity wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to undermine the people who used her as a pawn.

“Oh, now you have sour face. It is our way. The bonds of brotherhood before bonds of matrimony. In marriage, love is secondary at best. The advantages for the organization matter most.” Irina looked between Felicity and Oliver significantly.

She suddenly felt irrationally protective of her fake marriage. “A shame,” Felicity said. “I suppose Oliver and I are lucky to have the relationship we do.” She squeezed Oliver’s forearm, and even though he was very involved in telling a story, he automatically responded by taking her hand in his.

“Yes, yes, of course.” Irina patted her cheek like she was a particularly stupid child. “What advantage could you possibly offer the Bratva?”

When she found herself wanting to list all the ways the Bratva could benefit from her expertise, actually, she knew it was time to reel in the conversation. Luckily, the guests started shouting “ _Gor’ko_!” again so she was treated to watching Aleysha brace herself as Masha moved in for a kiss. Felicity ached for the bride. “But is she always that miserable?”

“You would be looking sad too, if you knew the size of Masha’s dick.”

She was saved from having to respond to that little dose of TMI by the beginning of the dancing. The bride and groom took the floor (looking like they’d rather be anywhere else, of course) and Felicity snuck a glance at Oliver. They had agreed earlier that his best chance of getting away unnoticed and her best chance at blending in with the crowd would be during the dancing.

Aleysha and Masha couldn’t part quickly enough once the song ended, and other couples began drifting onto the floor. Felicity turned to Oliver expecting to exchange a silent “Go team!” before they made their move, but instead was offered his hand.

“Dance with me?”

Right. They should probably dance at least one dance before trying pull one over on the Bratva. It’s just that she hadn’t been planning on it. She could do it, dance with Oliver. Of course she could. Especially now, with her new resolve. She looked up and he was still smiling and holding out his hand, but his eyes were all “stop leaving me hanging here.” So she took it. She just wished she’d had a little more advanced preparation.

oOo

Oliver didn’t recognize the song the orchestra played, but it was slow and gave him the chance to pull Felicity close, so nothing else mattered. This dance, in the middle of a mission, he was going to give it everything he had. It felt like his last chance.

He’d seen her surprise when he’d asked. For a moment, he’d thought she would refuse. When they stepped onto the dance floor, though, her hesitance was gone. She settled against him, tucking her head into the crook of his neck, just like she always did, and it was all he could do to keep moving with the music. He just wanted to hold her. Just...if he had more time, another chance. He could get it right.

She sighed and he felt her breath on his neck. He pulled her even closer, the silk of her dress bunching under his fingers. When she raised her head to look at him, her lips were slightly parted.

“Oliver--”

The music ended and before he could say anything, Anatoly was there, claiming his dance.

If he only had more time.

But time was never on Oliver’s side, so he handed Felicity, still looking slightly dazed, off to Anatoly. The other man made a joke about stealing Oliver’s woman, and they all pretended to be amused. As he walked away, Felicity called out to him.

“Come back for me.”

And even though he had work to do, and she was in the arms of another man, he turned back to her and pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Always.”

oOo

Oliver had been gone for fifteen minutes. Being able to track time in her head while interacting with others was one of Felicity’s secret talents. She’d danced with Anatoly twice--both times to raucous music that had her spinning so rapidly she almost fell from dizziness--and had been weaving in and out of the crowds on the dance floor and by the bar ever since. She was doing just what she and Oliver discussed--being seen, but never in one place or long enough for anyone to really notice that Oliver wasn’t with her.

16 minutes.  She complimented a woman named Nadia on her dress, but kept walking. 16 minutes was well within the reasonable timeframe. It wasn’t like Oliver had super-speed. It would be ridiculous to expect him back in less than 20 minutes, and that’s only if everything went perfectly. Which it never, ever did. But she wasn’t going to think about all the ways the whole thing could go terribly wrong and what would happen to her and Oliver and all of those women if it did.

17 minutes. She pretended to take another shot as more shouts of “ _Gor’ko_!” rippled through the crowd. Poor Aleysha was most obviously not looking forward to her wedding night.

18 minutes. Frack. They should’ve brought Barry.

19 min--

“Oliver’s Felicity.”

She stiffened at the sound of her name in his mouth.

“I had hoped I would catch you without a partner. Dance with me.”

It wasn’t a question, which only increased her desire to refuse, but Iliya was looking at her like the spider that caught the fly and accepting seemed like the least dangerous option. The average song lasted three minutes. She could do anything for three minutes. Including dance with a slimy human trafficker. Which is what she’d been doing when she’d danced with Anatoly, she realized. He was just nicer; that was worse.

Unfortunately, the orchestra had switched back to slow music as soon as they stepped foot on the floor. Iliya pulled her much closer to him than she wanted, and she stiffened her spine.

“I have been looking forward to getting to know you better, Felicity.”

Gag. 20 minutes. “It’s too bad we’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Oh, but the night is still young. And I am certain we will be seeing much more of each other.”

 _Think again, mister._ But she didn’t say anything. Although she did accidentally-on-purpose step on his toes.

“You are very special, Felicity.”

She shuddered as he tightened his grip on her waist. “You don’t even know me.”

The look he gave her in return was condescending.

“Actually, I know exactly who you are.”

oOo

Anatoly had left only two men guarding the villa during the wedding. Two men who, from what Oliver could tell, were pissed about missing the party and had decided to get very drunk to make up for it. When he detonated a single explosive arrow just close enough to the villa that it could have been a threat, while still far enough away that it could also just be fireworks from the beach, both of the men stumbled off to investigate. Oliver zipped a dark hoodie over his suit and quietly rappelled up to the french doors leading to his old friend’s bedroom; he easily handled the lock.

Once inside, he made quick work of finding the ledger, still exactly where Felicity described. Oliver found the relevant pages and scanned them with the device Felicity had given him. They had checked earlier to ensure there were no silent alarms on the villa, but Oliver knew there was the possibility Anatoly had set up cameras. That no action had been taken against them after Felicity’s first round of snooping suggested there weren’t, but Oliver couldn’t be sure. It was always a possibility that the Bratva was giving him more rope to hang himself, though compiling sufficient evidence before taking action wasn’t really their style. Truthfully, it didn’t matter. Even if there were cameras, Anatoly wouldn’t have an opportunity to go through the footage until after the wedding, and Oliver and Felicity would be on a plane by the middle of the next day. If all went well, what they were up to wouldn’t remain a secret much longer than that.

He finished with his scan and checked on the guards from the window above their station. They hadn’t returned to their post. He would’ve like to have Felicity with eyes on the perimeter, but it would’ve been too risky for them both to disappear from the wedding. He would have to take a chance on exiting the way he’d entered and hope that the drunken enforcers had gotten distracted down by the beach. He made it all the way to the garden path before he felt eyes on him

Fuck.

Oliver reached for his weapon just as someone stepped out from behind a tree.

“The game you are playing is a dangerous one. I see you are as reckless as ever.”

“Anatoly.” Oliver did not pull his weapon, but he also didn’t move his hand.

“You can put your hand down. You won’t need a gun, or whatever it is you are using to kill people these days. You will not die here, Oliver. Not tonight.”

“Not tonight? So you plan to wait until tomorrow?”

The older man rubbed his temples, looking so tired. So old. “I had really hoped you would not come here.”

They both knew he didn’t simply mean the villa, but Oliver pretended he didn’t. “I have been gone for so long. How can you fault me for trying to gather as much information as possible before committing again.”

“There was time when you simply would have asked me for any information you need. But of course, times change. You will do what you have to do, Oliver. I will do the same.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

Anatoly sighed. “You think little of my friendship, I see, so let me be clear. No harm will come to you from me.”

“And Felicity?”

“Yes, yes, Felicity. You really should be getting back to your lovely wife.”

Cursing under his breath, Oliver pushed past Anatoly on his way back to the reception. He had meant to enter subtly, weaving himself into the crowd so that it would appear he’d never been missing. Arriving at the torches demarcating the boundary of the party, he immediately found Felicity and all thoughts of subtly were banished. She was in Iliya’s arms, her back to Oliver, but the cold look of victory on Iliya’s face was enough to have Oliver stalking his way to the dance floor.

He placed his hand on Felicity’s shoulder and glared at Iliya. “I’ll dance with my wife now.”

The other man smirked. “I am surprised you let us go for this long. But, yes, take her. I am quite finished.”

Iliya left without a backward glance and Felicity stood stock still, facing the space where he’d been. Oliver’s heart pounded.

“Felicity?”

Slowly, she turned to him, her skin ghostly pale. “Did you get what we needed?”

“Yes. Are you--?’

She launched herself into his arms, and he began to circle slowly, giving some ghost of an impression that they were just a regular couple, dancing like everyone else. She buried her face in his chest and beneath his hands he felt her shoulders begin to shake. A murderous rage welled up in him.

Careful that his feelings didn’t show, he bent his head down to hers. “Tell me,” he growled.

They’d gotten what they needed. If anyone had hurt Felicity, he would burn the place to the ground.

“Please,” she whispered shakily. “Please, just get me out of here.”


	10. Little Boxes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure this is one of those chapters you'll either love or hate. If you love it, all the credit goes to Peacefulboo (seriously, I almost want to post the first version of this chapter so you can see the difference her beta feedback made). If you hate it, that's on me. Either way, thanks for reading.

They were saying their goodbyes. Weaving. Toasting. Congratulating. Her hand was in Oliver’s and it was the only thing tethering her to the here and now. She was not new to having her foundation shaken, but the practice had yet to make her better able to weather the shifting.

A few people spoke to her. She looked right through them. Said nothing.

Oliver’s hand. Rough. Familiar. The scar that curved jerkily along the ridges of his right thumb. A lesser one, so she’d never bothered to learn its origin. He could tell she was floating away. It’s why he held on so tightly.

Why could she still be caught so thoroughly off guard? How could she still look at people and think “They would go this far. But no farther.”? This low; no lower.

There was always so much farther a man could go, and she had allowed  _ should’ve known better _ to be the refrain dominating her adult life.

Should’ve seen it coming. Should’ve suspected. Should’ve thought it possible.

Should’ve known better.

They were by the ocean and Oliver was talking, his face distorted by worry. She focused on their hands, hers and his. Real and solid.

“Felicity. Please.”

The words were ragged and desperate, and they brought her back, because they had a job to do.

She had the rest of her life to process all the ways she was so blind, so consistently wrong.

“So you got it?” The tide was rising and the salt water was going to ruin her dress. She didn’t bother hiking it up. The ocean could have it.

“What happened while I was gone?”

She shook her head. “The mission is what matters. Did you find it?”

Oliver was backlit by the moon, and he stood silently for a moment as if she might change her mind. 

She wouldn’t.

Eventually he answered, “I found it.”

“Okay, so here’s what we’ll do when we get back to the room.” She was back to her best. Competent. Capable. Illiya, Anatoly, all those men. They underestimated her, but they’d find out soon enough. She would be the end of them. “You’ll get me the translated addresses. Curtis is waiting, he’ll help me access satellite footage so we can narrow down the search to likely locations.”

Oliver nodded. “Dig and Lyla are on stand-by with small teams. We’ll give the signal and then whoever among us is able to get there first will begin local ground reconnaissance so that when the others arrive we can finalize extraction plans.”

“Right. I have travel documents ready to go, and it shouldn’t be a problem to hack into the airlines to create both real and dummy itineraries. Even if the Bratva suspects us, the digital misdirection will secure our head-start. That’s what they get for all their IP jumping.” Adrenaline was taking over now, she needed to get back to her computers.

Oliver pulled her back.

“You should know that Anatoly caught me leaving villa.”

And if any part of her was still stuck on that dance floor listening to Iliya, this was all it took to jerk her into the here and now. “What? Oliver! Then what are we even doing here?” She was pacing. She didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know how to get them out of this.

“It’s going to be okay.”

He was so calm, so...nonchalant, when this was  _ it _ for them, this was--

“Hey.” He gently untangled the fingers she hadn’t even realized she’d buried in her hair. “He’s not going to hurt us. He gave his word.”

“His word? Do you hear yourself right now? What does his  _ word  _ mean?”

“Everything. Felicity, it means everything. If Anatoly wanted either of us dead, we would be by now.”

Okay. Okay, they now inhabited a bizarro world. Some sort of fucked up version of Alice in Wonderland.

“Felicity, you need to breath.”

“Ha! Sorry, kind of hard to manage when the only thing standing between us and death is the word of your old Bratva supervisor and the goodwill of your ex-lover.” Ugh, lover. That word was just never acceptable.

“We never had an affair. We pretended we were.”

That was the point he wanted to clarify? 

“That would be news to Iliya.” She shuddered.

Oliver got very still, but eventually he spoke.

“We pretended we were sleeping together. Irina’s father had recently died. He’d been powerful, he was basically in charge of all of the Brotherhood’s financial holdings. Irina was going to be forced to marry Iliya, to consolidate power. He hated me. By pretending to be sneaking around and by being ‘accidentally’ exposed, he was forced to choose between power and humiliation. Men like Iliya, their ego is always their weakness. Irina was able to remain single and make her own power play. From what I can tell, it worked. I was allowed to live only because I was Anatoly’s protege.”

So Irina was basically the best-case-scenario Aleysha, and all of these people were horrible. Felicity raked her hands down her face. “Why did you stay with them, Oliver? Why do people work with them?”

He hung his head. None of this mattered. Not now. It just...it didn’t matter. Felicity sighed. “You’re sure they’re not ordering our deaths right now?”

“I know this culture, these people. Irina owes me a debt and Anatoly will be true to his word.”

Their lives. Nora. Renisha. All those women. So very much was riding on Oliver being right.

Oliver brushed her cheek. “We don’t have to worry about them for now. You can trust me.”

And she believed him. Deep in her bones. He asked her to trust him, and she just did. 

She should know better.

“Then let’s get to work.”

“Wait, Felicity. What happened with Iliya?”

She winced, and his hands were on her face again, and she wanted to tell him everything, but she had to work. And to work, she had to hold it together. And if she told Oliver, she would fall apart.

“After,” she choked out. 

She walked away quickly, leaving him no choice but to follow.

oOo

Felicity’s fingers were flying across the keyboard, between windows and devices, at a frenzied pace. This part, where he had either done all he could or was waiting for her to give him the information he needed to act, was always the hardest for him. Tonight it was worse.

She had been nearly catatonic as they’d left the reception. There was a moment by the ocean when he hadn’t been sure he’d be able to bring her back around. She was always the one to bring him home, and seeing Felicity lost? It broke him. 

Whatever it was that had been put her over the edge tonight, Iliya had done it.

It took all of Oliver’s restraint, all of his focus, to keep himself from going to find the other man and making him pay for whatever he’d done to her.

His imagination was becoming a problem. Felicity kept shooing him away from her, thinking he was looking over her shoulder (one of her long-established pet peeves), when actually he was checking her over for bruises or marks.

If Iliya Gordeev had put a finger on her, he wouldn’t live to see the sun rise.

His shirt was choking him. Why was he still wearing his tie? He took it off and flung it in his bag. Decided his shirt needed to follow. He caught Felicity watching him out of the corner of her eye, something that might have amused him if his head wasn’t so damn full of all the damage Iliya could have done in twenty minutes.

He stalked into the bathroom and changed. When he came back out, Felicity was frantically gesturing for him to come to the computer.

“Aleysha was right,” she mouthed.

Bangkok.

Felicity and Curtis had worked their magic and narrowed the possible holding location for the people of Star City to two warehouses, one abandoned school and two hotels in Bangkok. He took his burner phone and typed coded texts to Dig and Lyla while Felicity finalized travel. He received confirmation messages in return and after a few beats Felicity closed her laptop.

Finished.

She looked up at him and once again, he took her hand.

“It’s our last night, babe. Come on. One more walk by the ocean.”

He watched her guard go up bit by bit as they made their way to the shore. She had never changed out of her ruined dress, and the image she presented twisted his heart.

“Tell me.”

She bit her lip again as tears filled her eyes. He watched them spill over and imagined all the ways he could make Iliya cry.

“They know who I am,” she finally whispered.

“What do you mean?” His heart was racing. “They know we’re not married?”

She shook her head, swallowing back a sob. It took her a minute, but when she was able to speak, it all rushed out at once.

“My...my father. He worked for them.” Oliver stumbled back in shock. The implication of Noah Cutter working for the Bratva were dizzying.

“These men ,” Felicity continued, “who steal women--little girls!--and sell them to the pervert with the highest bid. My  _ father _ helped them. That auction site? He wrote the software. My father, Oliver. I know...I thought I understood who he was. I thought...I knew he didn’t respect laws...I thought he was a bad husband, a deadbeat dad, but...I thought there was a line. He worked for them. These men, Oliver, he helped them. For money, for...for the challenge of it. He was one of them.”

She was shaking with anger and shock and betrayal, and he wanted to gather her to him and make it all but better. 

But his world was crumbling too. 

Felicity was disgusted by her father and what he had done. Rightly so.

But what about him? What about what he’d done? It was long past time for him to come clean.

She deserved truth from him, and it was time for him to lose her.

“Felicity,” he broke in softly, wanting to touch her, but knowing better. “ _ I  _ was one of them.”

She froze in the sand. “No, Oliver, it’s different. He directly facilitated human trafficking. He made it more efficient for them to sell people, Oliver.”

He felt the shame that he was always just barely holding at bay finally swallow him whole. “Oh, Felicity.” He could stop here. He could comfort her. He could leave her with all her little compartments and all his half-truths. Maybe he was imagining it, but when he looked at her, it was almost like she wanted him to leave it too. To keep his truth somewhere deep and dark and far away from her.

But she deserved more than that from him. And if it wasn’t now, it would be never. 

“When Anatoly found me again, I was...I was...so far gone. I had made a promise to someone on Lian Yu. I was supposed to find her parents. I was supposed to help them. I was supposed to make things right, but...I fucked up.”  _ Like always, right? _ “I tried to intervene with these people they owed money, and, um...it didn’t help. It got them killed instead. And then I was just there in Russia, and it had been four years since I’d been home, and I wasn’t the same. How could I go home?”

She was just staring at him, not really following, and he was not good at this.

He took a breath, started again. 

“I had promised myself I could go home again, once I’d made things right. But I failed. After that, I didn’t...I just wanted to hurt. I wanted to make people hurt. There were these underground boxing rings, and...it was all I did. I didn’t think anymore. I didn’t try anymore. That’s where Anatoly found me. He wanted me to go with him, to work with him. I knew what it meant, but I didn’t care. I didn’t have it in me to care.”  _ Don’t justify. _

But there was sympathy in her eyes, and it was all wrong. She wasn’t understanding.

“Felicity, I killed on command. That’s who I was. There was always an enemy, always a way to justify--”

“I know who you were when you first came back, and I know it wasn’t good, but it’s still not the same--”

“Do you think that human trafficking is a new line of business for the Bratva?”

And there. There, he got her.

“Do you think a captain isn’t involved in every part of the business?”

“Oliver--”

“Inventory. That’s what we called it. There was inventory coming in constantly. Drugs, weapons. People. These huge crates arrived at the ports, and...and it was up to me to decide where they went. Dozens, every week. Felicity,  _ dozens. _ I didn’t realize at first. I didn’t look inside.” He couldn’t let himself leave that part out even though it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter. “But I knew. I knew.” 

She was immovable. She barely breathed.

“One day Iliya wanted to open the crates. It was important that a captain personally inspect the quality of the product.” Oliver closed his eyes as he narrated that day. He was there. He could feel the bite in the air and smell the salt and the diesel. “He used a crowbar.” Oliver could still hear the creak, the silence that followed. “It was full of women. Girls.”

From far away he heard Felicity gasp, and good. Finally.

“They didn’t try to escape. They just sort of crouched together, just blinking at us. And the smell….” The sweat and the urine and the terror. “Felicity,” he opened his eyes, met hers, “it probably wouldn’t have even affected me, except...except there was this one girl. This one girl with blue leggings and a Justin Timberlake t-shirt and red sneakers, and...and Thea loved Justin Timberlake, and Thea had these red sneakers that she wore all the time and…. The girl, Zamira, her name was Zamira, she was holding a teddy bear, Felicity. An old raggedy teddy bear and there was this heart sewn onto its chest, and I don’t think it came that way. I think someone had sewn it there; just for her.”

And now her face was crumpled, and he couldn’t look anymore. 

“It was the only thing that stopped me. That girl.” Who’d had the good fortune to look like Thea, who’d happen to be holding a goddamned teddy bear. “I helped her. That night, while they were waiting to be sent away...I’d just helped Irina, and I was so...I thought I could do anything. I thought I was untouchable.” He scoffed. Like he was some kind of mafia savior. “I got her on a train. There was a family I’d met before...they lived outside the city. I thought….”

His face was soaked, and her back was turned, and he was almost finished. Almost.

“I didn’t try to help the other girls. It didn’t even occur to me until the next day when they were already gone, and it was too late.”  _ Always, always too late _ . “That’s when I knew I had to get away. I had to go home. I couldn’t keep being that person. But you see that it’s not different, right? You see that it was too late. Dozens of crates a week. For months. I do the math sometimes…. And,” he laughed a bitter laugh, “I didn’t even help Zamira. That’s what I learned at the council meeting. They knew what I was doing all along. I thought I was so powerful, I thought I was better than them, but they found her and they brought her to work for them. She’s the one, recruiting girls from Star City. I saw her, even, at the baseball game. I convinced myself I was wrong, but she was there.”

Her shoulders were quaking. He slumped. He was so, so tired.

“So now you see.”

He had told her everything. He had taken all that was left between them, and he had decimated it.

Now he was the one who was barely breathing.

When she finally spoke, her voice strangled, he flinched.

“I just need a minute. Please. Go back to the room without me.”

But he couldn’t even give her that. “I can’t leave you out here by yourself.”

She whirled around, stunned. 

“I know, I do. But it’s too dangerous. If any of them, if Iliya...I’m sorry, Felicity.” He raised his hands, let them fall. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. If I could change it....” He would change everything. Everything.

They walked back to their room in the same stunned silence that had cloaked their earlier arrival. Without a backwards glance, Felicity walked directly to the outdoor shower. He listened as the water pounded, full blast.

It had always been there--during the standoff with Slade, during their kiss in the hospital, in Ivy Town, when he made that promise to Samantha, when he proposed marriage--the knowledge that one day Felicity would understand who he truly was. She would find out that it went beyond survival and impossible choices to the core of his soul. She would see it, and she would be horrified.

It destroyed him. But it was also a relief. He didn’t have to wait for it anymore, for her to realize how wrong she’d been. For her to finally see that he could play at being a hero, but there would be no real redemption for him.

Only penance.

oOo

She turned on the water as hot as it would go. Left her ruined dress in a sad heap on the ground. Let the scalding shower pound her skin.

She paced the tiny length of the shower. She just needed a fucking minute. She just….

Her father, who so early on had inspired and encouraged her own talent, sold his expertise. For fun. For the challenge. For money. 

She had already known that. He had been willing to steal from her, his own daughter. If the Bratva came calling and the price was right, of course he wouldn’t say no. That wasn’t who Noah Cutter was. This was not new information.

It still hurt.

Nora, alone in that dark room. A camera constantly on her. Men, all over the world. Watching. Bidding. Felicity’s father helped make that possible. She put her fists to her eyes, trying to block out the images.

She was trying to help. She was going to save them. Did it cancel it out, did it….

She was doing her best. She was trying to help. Because that’s what she did. She tried to help. It wasn’t for her, to right her father’s wrongs. She had enough of her own.

She turned the faucet, made the water temperature less painful.

The people of Havenrock. She didn’t do what she did and then never look back. She thought about them all the time. She read their names, she did what she could for their families, for their city. It didn’t matter, but it also did. Because she wasn’t like her father.

Oliver.

He was one of them, he was one of them, he was one of them,  _ he _ was one of  _ them _ . She thought she knew what that meant, but she hadn’t. She was right back in that parking garage with Damien Darhk taunting Oliver about a son she hadn’t even known existed.

She’d almost married him, but she hadn’t really known him.

Now she did. Everything. He told her it was everything.

Maybe...her chest was so tight and her heart was going so fast and it felt like maybe she might die here in this shower under the Bali sky. 

She was having a panic attack. Count. She just needed to count her breaths. One-one. Two-two. Three-three.

Her mind tried to make the adjustment, to fit Oliver into these new boxes alongside Oliver, her friend. Oliver, the hero. Oliver, the man who held her heart. Now she needed to reconcile Oliver, the ruthless Bratva captain. Oliver, the human trafficker.

Oliver, who had been lost.

And maybe those new boxes should trump everything. Maybe who he had been should be enough for her to write off any kind of significant relationship, the way she could with her father. 

But she also couldn’t let go of who he was right now.

He was her Oliver, who risked his own life time and again for others. He failed, but he never stop trying. Isn’t that what had made her stay, even after their broken engagement?

And even when he was at his worst, when he believed himself completely lost, he still helped Irina. Even though he had nothing to gain. He still tried to save a girl with a stuffed bear.

She wasn’t entirely wrong about him.

But it wasn’t enough.

She couldn’t be alone with her thoughts for a second more, not without losing her mind entirely. She turned off the water, wrapped herself in a towel and went back to the room, completely unsure of what to do once she got there.

But then she opened the door, and Oliver was bent double on the edge of the bed. She’d seen him broken before, but never destroyed. And no, no she didn’t accept this.

What good did it do to be destroyed?

She wasn’t wrong about him.

Without a word, she pulled him from that bed, from that place where he was drowning, and she dragged him back to the shower, water on full blast to cover their words, because this was not how he ended.

He dropped his hand, stepped away. He looked at her but his eyes were glassy and blank.

“What are we going to do about it?”

He was in too many pieces, and he couldn’t answer, and she did not accept that. 

She splashed him with cold water, and he jumped back, eyes clearer.

“What are we going to do about it?”

He was shaking his head. “There’s...there’s nothing I can do.”

“About the past. There’s nothing we can do about the past. What are we going to do going forward, starting now? How are we going to make amends?”

“Felicity. You have no amends to make.”

She waved him off, because he was missing the point. “I’m right here. We’re a team, and there are women out there whose lives are being destroyed by men who treat them as business negotiations and men I loved were once a part of that, but it ends. Here. Now. With us. What are we going to do about it, Oliver?”

He blinked, bewildered. “We’re going to bring Nora and everyone else home.”

“And then?”

His jaw set and his eyes narrowed, and he was her Oliver again. “And then we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure it never happens to anyone else.”

Yes. They were going to do everything in their power.  Carefully, she made her way to him. She closed her eyes and put her lips to his forehead.

“I know you,” she whispered into his skin.

When she opened her eyes he was staring back at her, but still seemed so far away. She shook her head and leaned in to kiss him again, this time on the lips.

“I know who you are.” His mouth refused to open beneath hers, but he didn’t back away either. She kissed him again, and again, and again, her fingers trailing up his back, across his chest, over the scars and tattoos. The black sun. This one was Bratva. She traced it carefully.

“I know who you are. I know who you are, I know you.”

She kissed him again and he still wasn’t moving. She let her hand trail down to the front of his cotton pajama pants, felt him hard beneath her. “Oliver. Please.”

She was begging, and she didn’t even care.

It worked. He groaned against her lips, his hips thrusting. He buried his hands in her hair and finally his lips parted, his tongue crashing against hers. 

She was mewling--mewling, for god’s sakes, but she just…. It had started because she wanted to comfort and be comforted, but now she just wanted him.

It had been so long.

She had missed him.

She let her towel fall to the floor. She heard his sharp intake of breath, saw the way his eyes went dark. 

“Felicity,” his voice was ragged; he was barely holding on. “Are you sure?”

She was sure. So. Fucking. Sure.

She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he was carrying her to the bed and there was no more room for words. Skin against skin. She couldn’t get close enough. His hands on her breast. On her ass. Her fingers clawing down his back.

This was Oliver. She knew him. He was hers.

“Oliver,” she gasped, pulling at the drawstring of his pants, “please. Please. Now.”

And then his pants were gone, and he was moving back toward the headboard, taking her with him. She raised herself above him, and she lowered herself over him, he raised a hand to cup her cheek.

“Felicity.” His voice was thick with desire and hope and longing.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” She took his hand from her face and held it to her breast, groaning as their pace became frenzied.

They didn’t last long. They poured everything they had into each other, clinging together like you cling to your very last chance.

Felicity came hard, whispering “Yes, yes, yes.” She collapsed against his chest. As she shuddered around him he pulled her tightly against him and thrust sharply into her with a groan.

They held on to each other. He slipped out of her, but buried his face in her hair and tucked her head into his neck. Neither said a word.

It solved nothing. It changed nothing. But it felt like everything.

She draped an arm tightly around his waist and snuggled against him like it was freezing and he was her only defense against the cold. She let her mind rest.

Tomorrow would come. And they would face it together.


	11. Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Peacefulboo for being the best beta. Only two more chapters to go after this!

She watched their landing from the window seat. He watched her. They hadn’t spoken the entire day. Not when they woke up tangled in each other. Not when they’d parted. Not when he’d left a message for Anatoly claiming a crisis in the city had called him home. Or when she’d carefully slipped off the rings, another sham marriage come to end. Not as they’d left Bali behind under the soft light of dawn on their way to finish the mission they’d begun.

And it was okay.

The silence was easy. Nothing had been resolved. It was possible everything had changed between them; it was equally possible nothing had. Either way, her words-- _ I know you _ \--were his to keep forever, and they gave him the strength to go forward. Whether it was what he deserved, whether it was what she needed, those were decisions for another time.

They upheld their fortress of quiet as they stepped into the sticky Bangkok air and dizzying maze of cars, people and vendors outside the airport. On the edge of it all, leaning against a nondescript sedan was an old friend. Oliver couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face. Felicity, as if sensing his change of mood, glanced up at him and followed his line of sight.

Then she broke into a run.

She flung herself at Dig, and as Oliver walked up he heard his friend chuckle. “You’re acting like you didn’t know I would be here. You made the travel arrangements!” He couldn’t hear Felicity’s response, muffled as it was by Dig’s chest. Over her head, Dig met Oliver’s eyes and shrugged.

“Looks like no matter where we are, I’ll always end up being your black driver.”

Oliver shook his friend’s hand, even though his arms were still full of Felicity. “What if I took over driving duty this time around?”

“I actually prefer being behind the wheel. But I may need your help convincing this one to let go.”

“Not happening,” Felicity spoke up and Oliver saw the way she held Dig tighter. “Nope. Not letting you go. Ever. ”

The men laughed, even though Oliver wasn’t 100% certain Felicity was kidding. With a little coaxing, she let go. But she didn’t look happy about it.

On the way to the ARGUS safe house Lyla had arranged for them to use as a base of operations, they joked with each other and Felicity hammered Dig with questions about life as a private contractor and his job training military personnel in the Philippines. But once they arrived, they fell into old routines--Dig briefing Oliver on what he’d been able find in the two hour head start he had and Felicity familiarizing herself with the digital command center.

They’d been there twenty minutes when there was a knock at the door. Oliver stepped in front of Felicity, and Dig’s hand was on his gun as he went to open it.

It was Lyla and Oliver turned away, giving her and Dig a moment. There wasn’t much time for reunions, though. Lyla tossed Oliver a black duffle.

“Tactical gear, as requested.”

Oliver grinned. “Thanks.” 

Dig, who had stepped away to take a call almost as soon as Lyla had arrived, came back into the room. “That was Lance. We were able to confirm the number of known-missing from Star City is 18.”

“And I am uploading all of their photos into facial recognition,” Felicity spoke up, her eyes not leaving the computer. “I’ll make sure you’re outfitted with cameras during the extraction so we can check them off in real time.”

“We’ve already identified the location. My four men have set up local surveillance, and the two Johnny brought are on their way to join them.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow. Lyla, thanks to her access to the ARGUS jet was able to arrive last night, but this was happening awfully fast.

“I know, it was almost too easy.” Lyla gestured to the computer where Felicity had pulled up images of the six locations they’d identified based on the ledger. She pointed to an old colonial hotel on the outskirts of Bangkok. “It’s that one. We used thermal imagery to get a count of the people inside, and men have been in and out pretty constantly the entire time we’ve been watching. We’re assuming they’re allowing previews for high-level bidders.”

Felicity looked up at Oliver. “Too much to hope that the Bratva has gotten cocky about working with impunity in Southeast Asia and that’s why this has been so easy? Or...that maybe we’re just lucky?”

He made a face.

“Trap it is, then,” she shrugged. “So what’s our move?”

Oliver worried his thumb against his forefinger. “We need to get inside. Felicity, can you--”

“Hack into the auction, set-up user profiles, turn you into wealthy pedophiles and get you an invite to the most disgusting preview sale I’ve ever heard of? Yeah, no problem.”

When she put it that way.

“Wait,” Lyla broke in, “Felicity, don’t set-up profiles for Oliver and Johnny. We’re going to use my men instead.”

“Lyla, those are my people. This is my mission.”

“Yes, and we jeopardize that by sending you in prior to extraction. This is a job for the Arrow, not Oliver Queen.”

“Felicity, set up my profile.”

“Felicity, don’t you dare.”

Felicity, hands frozen over her keyboard, turned to Diggle. Dig’s eyes moved between his wife and his best friend. Oliver wasn’t surprised when they landed on him.

“You know she has a point, man.”

And he did. Still, he wanted to be the one in there. He didn’t like the idea of sending anyone else into harm’s way.

“It’s just for surveillance. To help us make the best possible plan for extraction.”

Felicity had already made her decision and was typing again. “Lyla, I’m going to send your men in with cameras. If they can get eyes on the women...and children,” she blanched, “we can go ahead and start comparing them to the list of missing people from Lance.”

Oliver growled. Just because Lyla was right didn’t mean he enjoyed being so thoroughly overruled.

“In the meantime,” Lyla spoke again, “we need to remember that even though ARGUS is involved this is not a sanctioned op. None of us has permission to conduct a raid on Thai soil.”

This time it was Felicity who growled. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

“That being said, I happen to know that the embassy, while completely unaware of anything we’re doing, will happily facilitate the return of the victims to the United States. “ Lyla continued, “Interpol, also ignorant of our plans, will prosecute any perpetrators of human trafficking we can deliver.”

“And when all of this is over,” Felicity added, “the FBI will receive the gift of the IP addresses of anyone in the United States who so much as considered bidding on Nora Darhk.”

“So once again, international agencies are letting vigilantes do their jobs,” Oliver said.

Lyla shrugged. “It went so well last time.”

oOo

At two hours in, Felicity silently begged Lyla to get Dig and Oliver out of her space--all of the stalking around and looking over her shoulder was going to drive her to murder. Lyla led the men upstairs to strategize (and hopefully train, because for Oliver at least, it had been a long time and Felicity was more than a little worried that he might be off his game. Not that she would say that out loud. She wasn’t in the mood to be growled at. Or to be given a demonstration.).

She bit her nails watching the first of Lyla and Dig’s men enter the hotel, the muted pink polish she’d chosen for the wedding--had that really been less than 24 hours ago?--flaking onto the wobbly pressboard table. They were scanned and patted down...but the cameras weren’t detected. She pumped her fist and sent a quick message to Curtis basking in their triumph. Of course, then she had to watch everything that followed.

The triumph faded fast.

The men were greeted by two males and two females. The males, she was able to identify pretty quickly as low-level Bratva operatives. The women weren’t coming up on facial recognition, but Felicity decided, fair or not, she hated them more than the men. How could they be involved in this? How did they sleep at night?

On luxury sheets if the designer outfits everyone was wearing were any indication. They were all in suits in the old-Siam throwback hotel acting like this was just any business meeting. They offered the “buyers” drinks and hors d'oeuvres. 

Her jaw popped and she tried to stop grinding her teeth.

They decided not to risk an audio device, so Felicity watched the men move soundlessly from the bar to what had once been guest rooms. Her heart stopped for a second when she noticed how the Bratva had modified the hotel for their purposes--the locks were now on the outside.

“You fuckers,” she whispered to herself. Too bad Jews didn’t believe in hell--she liked the idea of these men burning for all eternity.

She watched for hours as the men, and the four others that would come later, were taken room by room. The women inside were dressed in cheap lingerie, their hair and make-up done to conform to some cheap standard of sexy. It was their eyes that Felicity couldn’t look away from. They were dead, glazed. Of course they’d been drugged, subdued, made compliant. Getting them out of there would only be the beginning. Their lives were already irrevocably altered. 

But for now, getting them out was all they could do. 

She ran each woman through facial recognition. Lydia Sykes, 20. Laura Martinez, 24. Renisha Ayers, 19. The daycare provider.

“Just a few more hours,” she whispered to each one. “Just hold on a little while longer. Help is coming.”

Oliver, Dig and Lyla were coming down the stairs when one of the men was led by one of the female hosts to a room at the end of the hall. Before the door was unlocked, Felicity just knew it would be Nora.

The auction camera had been disabled all day, probably because of all the visitors. When they opened the door and revealed the girl now, Felicity struggled not to vomit. They’d dressed her in a frilly pink nightgown, her hair in braids tied in ribbons.

This...this was someone’s fantasy. She tried to steady her breath.

“Fucking hell.” Felicity turned back to Dig. She knew he was picturing Sara, what he’d do. Lyla was holding his arm as if holding him back.

“Felicity…” Oliver was standing right behind her now, dressed head to toe in black, the old grease paint taking the place of his mask.

“She’s not drugged.” She had to say something. “All the others were obviously drugged. Not Nora. At least, she doesn’t appear to be. That’s something...at least she won’t have to deal with that too….”

Or maybe there were just other ways to subdue a little girl.

Oliver reached around her and turned off the screen. “I think we have what we need.”

Felicity nodded. “We haven’t gotten eyes on all the victims, but everyone we’ve seen has been among the Star City missing. Does it sound right to you that they’d have all the people from one city in the same place and with no one else?”

“It’s a small hotel,” Dig said. “Not room for many more.”

“Not very cost effective.” 

Felicity pointed to Lyla in agreement. “Especially when you consider how much bigger the warehouses from the ledger were. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe there are women from other cities being held there, and we just didn’t see them,” Dig said. “Who knows how these assholes think?”  
Felicity found herself looking at Oliver, but quickly turned away.

“I...I don’t know what to think,” he said. When he spoke again, his voice was clearer, firmer, “We go on the information we have. If there are surprises along the way, we go with them. We hope the Bratva doesn’t know we’re here, but if something went wrong and they found out, our only advantage is our head start. We can’t risk that trying to get more information. Speaking of that…”

Yes. Speaking of that. Felicity winced. “My listening devices aren’t getting a signal. There’s been nothing since last night.”

“Fuck,” Oliver said under his breath. “Then it’s time. No more waiting.”

It had already been determined that Lyla and Oliver would lead the teams at the hotel while Dig and Felicity provided remote support and coordinated the completely hypothetical and absolutely unofficial embassy and Interpol efforts.

This was it. It was happening. Too fast and too slow, and okay, she needed to calm down.

“Be careful. And also, get those bastards.” 

Lyla and Oliver nodded. Dig leaned in to kiss Lyla and whisper something in her ear. Felicity didn’t know what to do.

Finally, she mouthed, “Come back.”

Oliver, face set in that grim pre-mission way, let a small smile slip. “Always,” he mouthed in return. 

And, fuck it, she flung herself at him, squeezing tightly. Then, all too soon they were gone and it was just her and Dig.

“They’re pros.”

“Yep,” Dig agreed, settling in beside her at the computers.

“And those men and women facilitating it--”

“Deserve to die.”

“Yeah,” she agreed without hesitation.

Dig bumped her shoulder with his elbow. “They’ve got this. We’ve got this.”

“Right.” She flexed her fingers. “Let’s get to work.”

oOo

The last of the operatives, one of Dig’s men, went in with a gun. It was enough to distract the hosts, to bring security running. It was the opening Oliver and Lyla needed. Lyla went first, guns out dividing the attention of the Bratva enforcers. A split second later Oliver sent an arrow flying, hitting the largest man in the room square in the shoulder. He fell to his knees and there was chaos.

Oliver narrowed his focus. The man in front of him, the man behind him. He was all muscle memory and instinct. Nothing existed outside of the present.

Until Felicity’s panicked voice was in his ear. “Don’t shoot! Lyla, don’t let anyone shoot; Oliver no explosive arrows!”

Dig, slightly more steady, followed up, “The building is wired with explosives. Any spark could send the entire thing up in flames.”

Oliver took this in while rounding on a man approaching from his left. He grabbed a floor lamp to block kicks being aimed at him from the right.

Guns were out of play, and their best hope was that the Bratva men knew about the explosives too. The Brotherhood was loyal, but not that loyal. Enforcers weren’t going to willingly blow themselves up for the business; maybe not even as a last resort.

Of course there was the possibility that they were unaware of this last level of protection….

“Explosives,” Oliver shouted, just in case. “The place is wired to blow.”

The fighting didn’t stop, but no one pulled a gun. Lyla took down two men and made disarming them a priority. Oliver tripped the last of his direct assailants with the lamp, then was able to loose four arrows in quick succession on the enforcers attacking the others.

“I guess sometimes it pays, bringing a bow & arrow to a gunfight.”

Even in the midst of a life and death struggle, Felicity could manage to make him smile.

His entire body was throbbing with the force of adrenaline. He and the rest of the makeshift Team Arrow briefly checked that they were all still standing and that the Bratva were all down. The lobby was cleared and Dig’s men were left to secure the prisoners.

Oliver, Lyla and the Argus operatives split down the hallways, leading to the rooms where the women were being held. One by one, the men cleared the rooms and Lyla gathered the women. Some were too drugged to leave on their own; others were too scared. Dig had signaled the embassy and they were on their way with diplomatic transport. Felicity was verbally identifying each woman, while reminding them to hurry, hurry, hurry.

Oliver was a machine. Door after door. Woman after woman. Don’t look too hard at their faces. Anticipate trouble. Move. Move. Move.

“We’re at sixteen. Get the other two and get out of there.”

One of the ARGUS agents emerged from the room across from Oliver, a tiny woman with a head full of braids crumpled in his arms.

“That’s Renisha Ayers. Nora’s the only one left, Oliver go. Go now.”

He was alone in the hall--the other men were taking the last of the prisoners to the lobby. Lyla was loading the women into the transport vehicles provide by the embassy. He rushed to the door at the end of the hall.

The room was empty.

“Nora! Nora Darhk!”

He looked under the bed, in the bathroom, behind the shower curtain.

He found her in the closet. She was rocking and chanting “No, no, no.”

Oliver turned off the voice modulator and knelt down beside. “Nora, do you remember me? I helped you once before. I’m going to help you again. We’re going to leave this place.” He reached for her hand, but she jerked away with a yelp.

“No. No, can’t leave. I want my mom. I need my dad. I want my mom, I want my mom, I want my mom.”

“Nora,” his voice broke.

“Oliver, man, just pick her up. She’s a little girl, just grab her and get her out of there.”

But she was shaking so hard.

“I want my mom, I want my mom, I want my mom….”  
“I can help her,” another woman entered the room. “I’ve been in the room next to hers. We’ve talked through the vents.” She walked around Oliver and took the child’s hand. “Come now, Nora. We must go.”

“Oliver, she’s not listed among the missing. I mean….it’s possible our list isn’t comprehensive, but….”

He didn’t need Felicity to tell him. He knew exactly who this woman was.

“Zamira, let go of the girl.”

The woman scoffed and yanked Nora hard, pulling her out of the closet and holding a gun to her temple.

He put down his bow. He saw the moment Zamira recognized him; hatred sparked in her eyes.

“The rescuer. Of course. You want me to let her go, why? So you can hunt her down again? Does it make the game more fun if you let them think they’ve won?”

“Let her go. You don’t need her. I’ll stay, but you need to let this girl go.”

“Oliver-”

“It’s fine,” he said softly to Felicity. It wasn’t, but then, it was never meant to be.

Zamira looked down at the trembling child in her arms. She pushed her away and turned her gun to Oliver.

He kept eye contact with Zamira, but spoke to Nora. “You have run. Run out of this room to the end of the hall. Turn right and don’t stop running until you find a woman named Lyla. Take one of those arrows,” he cut his eyes to where his weapons were lying on the floor. “If anyone tries to stop you from getting to Lyla use it.” He could hear Dig and Felicity over comms, but he had to ignore them. “Go, Nora.”

She hesitated, but only for a moment. Nora was gone, and he and Zamira were the only ones left.

“You have extra eyes and ears. Turn them off.”

Felicity’s and Dig’s protests were swift and frantic, but Oliver obeyed, whispering a quick “I love you; I’m sorry” before crushing the devices Felicity had given them beneath his boot.

“It’s only me and you now. And if you use that gun, the whole place comes down. Put it down. Come with me. Let me help you.”

“I remember your help. I remember everything.”

“Zamira, I’m sorry. I failed you once but I promise, not again.”

“So American of you, to talk of second chances.” She turned the gun from him and on herself. “You should go. Save yourself.”

This was his chance.

He wouldn’t get another.

“Don’t do it,” he begged.

She smiled at him, and he remembered the teddy bear and it’s tiny heart. 

“I’ve been dead for years.”

oOo

“NO!” Felicity stood quickly, her chair falling back. “Oliver, what did you do?” She turned to Dig, “What did he do?”

Dig wrapped an arm around her. “Lyla, we’ve lost contact with Oliver.”

“I have Nora; I’m taking her to the embassy van. She’s the last one. Oliver will be right behind her.”

Felicity shook her head. “No, there was someone else.”

“She had a gun; Lyla, can we send someone after him.”

Felicity was biting her nails again, listening to Lyla ordering the men closest to the hotel to turn around.

_ Hurry, hurry, hurry. _

But then there was rumble, the sound of concrete collapsing, of Felicity, losing her entire world.


	12. Aftershocks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy s5 premiere day! I wish I was more excited, but I'm mostly wary/nervous. Anyway, here's the penultimate chapter. Thanks as always to Peacefulboo for being such a supportive beta. Enjoy!

She was standing, still and solid as the world blurred around her. There was yelling and Dig was pacing, and it was too much. She took out her earpiece. Quieter now. Better.

She could live like this. In suspended animation.

Dig. A solid hand on her shoulder. A gesture too familiar; it never meant anything good.

“Lyla has Nora. The women and our team are accounted for.” The break in his voice betrayed the hope in his words.

“Except Oliver.” A statement, not a question.

A small nod of confirmation. 

The practiced rhythm of people who have been here before.

“W-we have to go. We have to be there.” 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” But they both knew he wouldn’t stop her. And where she went, he went.

Pandemonium. It was a word that always felt like too much. A word for action movies, not the real world.

The scene on the outskirts of Bangkok was pandemonium.

By now, Felicity knew the science of trauma. She understood why all her thoughts were visual, flashes of color and horror with no space for rational reflection. Dig’s hand, always her touchstone on days like this, kept her from being lost to the ground as she spun in circles seeking a familiar face.

A discreet black van with diplomatic tags, and for the first time Dig’s ever-present composure slipped as he gathered his wife in his arms. Holding onto Lyla’s hand, not letting go even as she reunited with her husband, was a little girl with black pigtails. A little girl Felicity had been watching for days.

Had it really only been days?

“Nora,” she whispered.

Solemn eyes, eyes that if she were honest she’d admit had always disturbed her, stared back into her own.

“It was the man in green,” the girl said so softly it was almost as though she wasn’t actually speaking at all. “He was wearing black, but it was him. He told me to run.”

Felicity’s attention was torn from Nora, the proof of the mission’s success, by Dig asking Lyla, “Have they pulled anyone from the building yet?”

Felicity whipped her head to the other woman in time to see her shaking her head no. “The first explosion set off a chain reaction. It’s still too volatile for rescue crews.”

So no one was looking for him. No one was even trying. He could be trapped and waiting...and Felicity was flying, racing toward the flames until that same strong arm she knew so well was stopping her, trapping her to his firm chest.

“Dig,” It was a plea, all urgency and desperation.

He was whispering reassurances, words her mind couldn’t even begin to process, and they were moving again. The same scenes, but in reverse. She tried to fight to go forward, but she’d never once been able to overpower him. The cry she let out when he had her back in the car was that of a wounded animal.

Dig took her hands in his, held her gaze with his melted chocolate eyes.

“Count your breaths, Felicity.” Just like before. Just like always.

And when she could hear him again, he reminded her that there was nothing she could do. Like she could ever forget how powerless she was when it counted.

“But I can’t leave him.” Her most important argument, but also a silly one and not helped by the way it came out as a shriek.

“The area is swarming with press. You can’t afford to be seen. If...if he got away, you know he’d go back to the safe house. That was the plan.” The gentleness of his tone made her want to hug him and punch him, in that order. But he was right.

On days like today, Dig was always right.

She slipped her hands from his and turned to face the front. Ready to give in to her reality.

She kept her eyes out the window as he drove. The people on the streets of Bangkok were going about their day--working, shopping, living. The same old urge to scream, to demand that they stop and recognize that the world had been altered settled into her chest. 

She would overcome it. She always did.

He parked at the house and the buzz of his cell had them both jumping.

She held her breath, because maybe. Oliver.

But it was Lyla, with word that one of Dig’s men had been injured in the blast. Felicity heard the hesitance in his answers, noticed his eyes cut to her.

“It’s okay,” she told him.

He held his hand over the phone. “Felicity--”

But she would be fine now. The shock was gone and all that was left was the living through it. She knew all about that; he knew she did.

“You know how to alert me if anything is off.” 

She did.

“And you’ll call me if you should hear from Ol--from him.”

She would.

“You won’t be alone for long.”

“I know.”

He didn’t drive away until she was in the house, waving quickly from the window to let him know that all was well. As well as it could be.

She stood in the middle of the main room and fought to hold herself together. She never knew what to do in the immediate aftermath, when the world was too much to face and sleep was impossible. Suddenly, breathing was difficult and her skin was on fire. Her clothes were too much, it was all too much. 

She was wearing a dress. Such a stupid choice. With big fucking flowers on it. How dare she wear something so effing...happy? She pulled it over her head and flung it to the floor. Better. Better. She kicked off her shoes, sent them flying into a mirror. It didn’t even shatter. They just bounced right off. She growled, stalking back to the bedroom where she’d left her bags.

And found Oliver.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. She was too stunned to even be embarrassed by her clothes. Or lack thereof.

“Oliver,” she breathed. He looked up at her, and his eyes were wet, his face streaked with dirt and ash and grease paint. But he was there. He was right there.

“She wouldn’t let me save her. But she let me save myself.”

Felicity was flying again, and this time Oliver caught her.

She didn’t have to persuade him to kiss her. He devoured her.

When she pulled back for air, his lips trailed down her neck, nibbled at her shoulder. She felt his tears on her skin.

“I wanted...I tried….”

“I know,” she said, raking her hands through her hair. “ I know.”

“I’m sorry.” He unhooked her bra, his fingers dancing down her spine before circling around to knead her breasts.

She let her head fall back. She moved her palm to his chest, felt the comforting rhythm of his heart under her hand.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She held a finger to his lips. “Enough,” she whispered.

Because it was.

He looked back at her with wild eyes. Unsure, it seemed, that she was real. But she was, and he was, and it was finally enough.

Removing his clothes had become her area of expertise. She loved the feel of the material slipping through her fingers. She loved his sharp intake of breath as she peeled it away.

She loved what came after.

She stepped away from him and stepped out of the last piece clothing separating them. The cotton had barely touched the ground before Oliver was reaching for her, carefully laying her on the unfamiliar bed. Entering her.

This time was soft. Slow. This time, their eyes were open. This time, they were through pretending.

He rocked into her with a gentleness that left her with the most exquisite pain. He traced every curve of her face, softly chanting her name. And when she came, he gathered her too him, held her still until the shaking stopped.

It took her saying his name for him to move again. Three swift thrust, and his head was buried in her neck, hands tangled in her hair.

Eventually he carefully rolled his weight off her, but held onto her hand. He turned his head to look at her.

“Felicity.”

Dear god, he should not be allowed to say her name like that. It made her think all sorts of thoughts that probably weren’t safe for her to think, but--

“Fuck!”

He bolted upright, just as she had, looking wildly around the room. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Dig!” She grabbed her bra and underwear. “Lyla! Oliver, they think you’re dead. I am  _ the _ most horrible, selfish--”

“Felicity. Breathe.” He held up his phone. I’m calling them now.” The corners of his mouth quirked. “You can go figure out where you left your dress.”

She swatted him. At least he was getting his sense of humor back?

When she was fully clothed, she found Oliver sitting at the kitchen table. This time he was in jeans, a tshirt and that old leather jacket she’d always loved.

“Hey.”

He gave her a shy, careful grin. “Hey.”

“How did Dig and Lyla take the news that rumors of your death had been greatly exaggerated.”

“With a calm that was borderline insulting.”

She laughed. “Well a man can only come back from the dead so many times before it gets a little played out.” She took in the bags at his feet, the equipment he’d packed up.

“Guess we have to go now.” 

“Anatoly and the others will be right behind us. They could be on their way here as we speak.”

“Is it bad that I’m glad we didn’t think about that 20 minutes ago?”

His grin wasn’t so shy anymore. He picked her up and swung her around and kissed the life out of her.

So much for proceeding with caution.

oOo 

He was playing with fire. In a thousand different ways, actually, but presently in the way he was just letting himself enjoy this moment with his friends and the woman he loved at a little hidden bar on the way to the airport. The four of them clinked together their cheap Thai beers, and it felt like home.

It wasn’t of course, and they were far from out of the woods. It was just so easy to forget that they were moments away from stepping foot on different planes, taking varied and circuitous ways home, hoping that some of the most dangerous men on Earth wouldn’t catch up to them.

They were stealing a moment. It would have to be enough.

“What will happen to Nora?” Felicity asked Lyla as the other woman finished explaining the plans the embassy had made to get the older victims home to Star City.

“They’re trying to locate relatives, but foster care is the most likely choice.”

Felicity bit her lip, but nodded in acceptance. Oliver wanted to touch her. Her shoulder, her back, her leg, anywhere. But they hadn’t exactly said what they were to each other now, and he wasn’t sure what was out of bounds. He knew his eyes kept returning to her face too much when he heard Dig cough out “Not this again.” He was pretty sure it was a sharp kick from Lyla that had his friend bumping his leg against the table.

Felicity was doing a relatively good job of appearing to be oblivious, but she saw the faint blush creeping up her neck.

“Interpol is already taking credit for the sting,” she said, pulling out her tablet. “And they’re using it as a launching point for an investigation into other Bratva operations.”

That brought Oliver crashing back down to earth. That was good news for justice. Maybe not for them. If the Bratva knew they were behind this, and Oliver wasn’t about to kid himself---they knew---then they’d throw everything they had at coming after him and Felicity. He’d burned all his bridges with the Brotherhood. Anatoly wouldn’t be able to protect them. He wouldn’t want to.

Felicity squeezed his hand. “We’ll be ready.”

“Should we add mind reading to your list of talents?”

“I don’t know about that,” Lyla said, “but you should probably add pedophile busting. My contact at the FBI tells me that the IP addresses you delivered from the auction site for Nora Darkh led to the discovery of several child pornography rings and the the rescue of two other children so far. They have 30 men and 6 women in custody.”

Felicity beamed for a moment, but then her face fell.

“There are a lot of bad people in the world,” Oliver murmured.   


“But a few less on the streets after today,’ Dig said, raising his glass for a toast. “It was good to be part of Team Arrow again.”

They clinked their glasses, and Felicity looked at Dig hopefully. “You could always come back with us.”

His smile was sad but his words were firm. “Not yet, girl.”

“But soon, right?”

Dig saluted Oliver in response.

They gulped the last of their drinks and it was time to go. On the corner by the bar, they had to part ways--each using a different form of ground transportation to the airport.

Lyla shook Oliver’s hand and hugged Felicity. “My mother is bringing Sara, and we’re going to spend a couple of weeks in the Philippines with Johnny before heading back to Star CIty, but let’s plan on another girls’ night when we get back. Maybe we’ll work on target practice since you’ve clearly mastered lock picking.”

“Looking forward to it,” Felicity smiled.

“You’re going to have your work cut out for you,” Dig said. “I know for a fact Felicity closes her eyes when she shoots.”

Felicity punched him in the chest and Dig pretended to be wounded before scooping her up in a bear hug and whispering something in her ear that Oliver couldn’t hear.

He put her down and while she was saying a last goodbye to Lyla, Dig pulled Oliver aside.

“You did it, man.”

“It was a team effort.”

“You got a plan for the fallout?”

“We’re working on a few things.”

“Call me and I’m there.”

Oliver clapped his friend on the back and leaned in for a hug.

“Get it right this time.”

Oliver didn’t even try to pretend not to know what Dig meant.

“I’ll do my very best.”

Dig pulled away but kept a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t hold on too tightly to the past. It’ll only trip you up.”

“I’d like to offer you that same advice.”

“I’m working on it,” Dig winked. “I’m almost there.”

“Good,” Oliver said. “We need you.”

“Nah,” he answered as he walked over to join Lyla. “I think you already have everything you need.”

Oliver and Felicity stood alone watching their friends walk away. Oliver looked at his watch. There were almost out of time.

“Good work, Felicity Smoak.”

“You too, Mayor Queen.”

You know what? Fuck treading carefully. He pulled her into a hug. “Be safe. We’ll talk when we get back.”

She nodded. “You too.” She gave a small wave and disappeared into the train station.

oOo

During her layover in Amsterdam, Felicity ordered a toasted baguette and a latte and tried to clear her head. She was in the middle of an international airport, but it was the most alone time she’d had in days, and she had some big decisions to make.

Like, maybe the biggest decisions. 

Not that there were hers to make alone, but she was pretty sure where Oliver stood. But what about her? Where was she?

“Saved by the bell,” she murmured as her phone buzzed, flashing Curtis’s picture. 

“What up?”

“ _ What up _ ? Felicity Smoak, are you serious right now?”

“Yes. But I’m also jet lagged, adrenaline-drained and all number of other things that could be affecting my judgment. I assume something terrible has happened causing you to call instead of text.”

“Nah. I just just missed the sound of your voice.”

“Curtis.” Felicity held her hand to her heart. “I’ve missed you too.”

“I also wanted to tell you to get on your tablet and stream the BBC. Mayor Queen is speaking from his former stepfather’s home in London about the daring rescue of eighteen Star City residents from a mob-fronted human trafficking ring.”

Felicity smiled. “Oh, I  don’t think that’s necessary. I sort of have the inside scoop on this one.”

“I beg to differ. Your boy’s in a three-piece suit. Time to bust out the 5G, Miss Smoak.”

And when he was right, he was right. Felicity watched a few minutes of Oliver deftly handling reporters’ questions, just as they’d rehearsed. He did look good in that suit, something she was dangerously close to allowing to factor significantly into her big decisions.

She was only human.

She only let herself to watch for a few moments, though. There was one other complicated man in her life that she needed to speak to before she left Europe.

oOo

He stepped off the plane from London at Star City International, and even though he’d been warned more cameras were waiting for him, the first thing he did was yank off his tie and dump it in the nearest trashcan. He took a quick second to roll up his sleeves. He’d already lost his jacket and vest. He got past security and sure enough, the press was waiting. He rehashed the speech he’d given in London and stayed for two hours until every last question was answered.

He was wrecked. He needed a shower, Felicity, and a bed. Two out of three of those he would be able to manage.

But when he finally made his way to the nearly-deserted parking garage, he thought he might have to reconsider his luck.

There she was in a periwinkle dress (when in the hell had he learned the word periwinkle?) leaning against the door of his car.

She looked up to see him staring at her and shrugged. “We came here together. You were my ride,” she said simply.

“Yeah. It would’ve been so difficult for you to find another way home.”

“Right?!”

He laughed and made quick work of walking to her. He took her hands and leaned his forehead against hers. They stood there for at least two minutes, and he knew it was a risk, but honestly he didn’t give a fuck if the press or some jerk with a cell phone camera showed up. He needed her.

“Come on. I’ll take you home.”

He didn’t dare ask if she wanted to come back to his place, but did feel a pang of dread when she didn’t protest him turning toward the townhouse. He looked over and she was drumming her nails on the armrest.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“Former billionaires pay triple.”

“Gladly.”

“Just thinking about collateral damage.”

“Felicity--”

“The city is so proud right now, but for Nora and those women, life will never be the same.”

“I know.”

“What we do, it will never be enough.”

He pulled over and closed his eyes. “I know.” He looked back up at her. “But we have to try. We have to let it be enough. We have to find a way to move through it and come out the other side with our souls in tact.” He took her hand. “Felicity, I learned that from you.”

“It’s just...it’s hard sometimes.”

“I know.”

She laughed and wiped at her eyes. “I guess that was kind of an understatement.”

“You’re not alone. No matter what we decide about us--”

“Oliver---”

“No, I know, I’m not trying to force a relationship talk on you when we’re both exhausted, I’m just trying to say, you have me. In whatever way you want. In whatever way you need. You have me. You will never, ever have to do this alone.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He pulled back onto the road and drove toward her place. He pulled in and walked her to the door, then ignored her protests and cleared the house of any danger before he was willing to leave her. 

She stood at the screen door watching him go and just before he got back into the car, she called, “Oliver! Wait!”

He didn’t even have time to register what she might need before she was right in front of him, arms around his neck. “What you said about me being alone” she whispered into his ear, “the same goes for you.” She pecked his cheek and pulled back quickly.

And for tonight, it was enough.


	13. Holding On & Letting Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, then end. Thank you to everyone who gave this story a chance. Special thanks to Peacefulboo for her generous beta work and Blindassassin for making me write this in the first place.

They were laughing at him.

“Cut the kid a break--I get that starry-eyed look on my face whenever I see Curtis too,” Quentin said. The laughs came louder.

But Oliver didn’t care. He loved the sight of Felicity (and sure, Curtis) walking toward him in their matching Star City Rockets t-shirts. The Rockets may not have won a game since their very first, but crowd enthusiasm was at an all-time high.

“We come bearing snacks,” Curtis said. “A Blue Coconut fizz for my love, even though it’s disgusting and there’s no such thing as a blue coconut.” Curtis stepped over Oliver to give his husband a kiss. Paul raised his drink in mock salute. “A Bahama Mama slush for the elder Ms. Smoak, a boring old beer for the Chief of Police--”

“And a Green Arrow Blast for the Mayor,” Felicity finished, taking her seat and handing him his milkshake.

That’s right, after a few of the survivors from the Bangkok mission leaked their suspicions about the vigilante’s involvement in their rescue, the Green Arrow had reached Flash levels of popularity in Star City. Oliver was proud, though a little disappointed that his signature drink was made with mint chip instead of chocolate. He understood the need to go with green, but his distaste for mint meant Felicity would end up with his drink.

“I got a double chocolate mocha malt for myself...in case you want to trade,” she whispered, dropping into the seat beside him. 

Mind reader.

“I ran into Renisha Ayers with Jared Holloway and his little boy. They looked really happy.”

Felicity was beaming, and another small weight lifted off Oliver’s soul. He’d worked with the city council to create a series of human trafficking awareness campaigns and resources, starting with services to the seventeen women rescued from Bangkok. Nora Darkh was placed in foster care in Coast City--everyone agreed it was better for her to have a fresh start--but Felicity kept tabs on her and had already set up a scholarship fund for the little girl. They were doing what they could. Things were better.

“Do you think it’s a good idea the way the city is glorifying this vigilante?”  Donna asked.

“He did rescue all those women,” Lance answered neutrally.

“Maybe, but the man obviously has issues. Running around in tights with a bow and arrow.”

Curtis choked on his Berry Madness Blast. Oliver smiled to himself.

“Honestly, I’m proud of you all for what you’re doing for this city, but I still don’t understand why you’d stay here. It’s ridiculous. And Vegas, just for one example--”

“Mom. Am I going to have to muzzle you?”

Donna winked at her daughter & nudged Lance. “That’s for later tonight.”

“Oh my no!” Felicity threw her hands over her ears and Oliver had the distinct pleasure of watching Quentin Lance turn a shade of pink he could only call magenta.

Paul, ever the diplomat, tried to change the subject. “So, Felicity, you and Oliver...looks like you’re back togeth-”

Curtis covered his husband’s mouth. “Shhh. We don’t speak of it. We don’t know what it is. We don’t jinx it.”

“ I know what it is, and if it doesn’t lead to grandbabies in the next year or so--”

“MOM!”

Oliver wrapped his arm around Felicity’s shoulder and said, “Maybe we should just focus on the game for now.”

The Rockets lost. It wasn’t even close.

It was Oliver’s best night in recent memory.

Felicity had gotten a ride to the game with Curtis-- they’d had a late meeting with new investors in S & H Technologies--but this time it wasn’t even a question that Oliver would be the one driving her home.

They weren’t exactly back where they had once been, but they were getting there.

When they reached her townhouse, Oliver walked her to her door and leaned in for a goodnight kiss. It was long and slow, and he might’ve gotten carried away. He definitely hadn’t meant to kick over her terra cotta herb garden, sending pots of lavender and rosemary scattering. Felicity giggled against lips, unbothered. 

The same could not be said for her neighbor.

“Take that inside to the bedroom! You’re waking up my cats!”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ferdinand.”

“Yes, Mrs. Ferdinand,” Oliver added. “We apologize.”

“Don’t care if he is the mayor. It’s after 10 pm. Young people these days….” the older woman shuffled back inside and Oliver and Felicity muffled their laughter.

“Pissing off Mrs. Ferdinand. That’s my cue.”

Felicity clutched his t-shirt and started kissing him again.

“Unless you’d like to revise our ‘No Sleepovers for Now’ policy.” Oliver waggled his eyebrows at her, and she pushed him away.

“Get out of here. I’ll pick you up for dinner tomorrow, and maybe we can renegotiate.” 

He grinned. “I’d love that.”

“Hey Oliver,” she whisper-yelled just as he was getting back into the car. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I’m happy.”

And thank goodness she turned quickly back into the house and shut the door behind her because if she’d given her even the slightest opening in that moment he would’ve scooped her up and never let her go.

oOo

The second he step foot in the loft, his neck tingled. All of the easiness and hope from just moments ago was pushed aside. He steeled himself and turned on the light. He wasn’t surprised to find the woman in red waiting for him in his favorite chair. Nor was he shocked by the man standing beside her, the one who wasn’t quite able to meet his gaze.

“Irina. Anatoly.”

Irina relaxed further into her seat. “Oliver. We have come to collect on a debt.”

“And what debt would that be?”

“You disappoint me, Oliver. After all we have been through, I was hoping for better from you.” There was sincerity in his tone and for the smallest of moments, Oliver felt a pang. There had been a time when he’d loved Anatoly, when the other man had been his salvation.

Irina scoffed. “That makes you both idiots.” She redirected her gaze to Oliver. “We are surprised to find you alone. How is your lovely wife?”

“What do you want?”

“Only what we were owed. What the Brotherhood is owed.” Irina stood and walked to Oliver placing a hand on his chest. “Are you happy to have your people back?”

“You had to know I would never allow citizens of my city to be taken.”

“Yes. We were counting on it in fact,” Anatoly said.

Oliver narrowed his eyes.

“Anatoly assured us that Oliver Queen’s weakness was his irrational love for his city. It was a relief to find out the Pakhan would not betray us.” Irina tsk’d her tongue. 

The older man spoke, his voice shaking with anger. Betrayal. “You look confused. The last four years have made you soft--I suspected it would be so. Do you really think you would have been able to find, much less rescue those eighteen women if we did not want you to? Have you grown stupid in addition to soft? Are you understanding what you have done?”

Oliver stepped away from them. “You were trying to lure me out? Why?”

“Not you. We had to see if it was true; if she could do what we had heard. She passed every test.”

“I don’t--”

“Understand?” Irina rolled her eyes. “No, of course not. Intelligence was never your defining trait. Which makes me wonder, how did you get her in the first place?”

Pieces were being to snap together. Oliver’s mind and heart raced. “No.”

Anatoly sighed. “You must know you have no choice. I am here as a courtesy to a former friend. What we are asking is a small thing, really. Felicity Smoak will finish the work the Calculator began, then abandoned. She will work for us, from here if you like, until your debt and her father’s is paid.”

“That will never happen. She is off-limits,” he growled.

“Still such a chauvinist,” Irina taunted. “As the Pakhan said, our visit is a courtesy. We wanted to give you the opportunity to prove your loyalty, to make it easier on her and all of us by convincing her yourself. But we have other ways. Felicity has a tender heart. We will resort to more...forceful methods if we have to, but I suspect when she learns the alternatives to settling the debts of her father and her lover, she will be most willing to meet our conditions.”

As if it was a signal, Irina and Anatoly pulled their weapons, aimed at his head. His body buzzed with the need to fight.

_ Not yet. _

“Now we go. We find what your woman is made of.”

oOo

Her legs collapsed beneath her. One minute she was standing in front of her open refrigerator wondering if she was getting too old to crave chocolate milk, and the next she was on her ass.

But that wasn’t her biggest problem.

Her biggest problem was that she couldn’t get the fuck back up. She slapped wildly at her thighs. Nothing. She felt nothing.

“No. No, this isn’t happening. No. Stand up. This isn’t happening.”

But it was happening. Her chip had failed and she couldn’t move and she was Freaking. The. Fuck. Out.  Her breaths were coming in quick little huffs, and she was going to pass out if she--

No. No She just needed to calm down. Count her breaths.  In one, out one. In two, out two. The red haze of panic was starting to dissipate, and she was going to be okay. There was just some sort of glitch. She just needed to get to her phone. She could call Curtis, and he would help her figure this out. He could fix this.

All sorts of argumentative thoughts were trying to intrude, trying to persuade her that this was bad, that her chip had failed for good and that these last few months of walking again were a reprieve not a cure, and she was going to be right back in that chair, and--

“Stop it. Stop it, Felicity.” She needed her phone. Which was in her bedroom. Okay. Okay, she could do this. She started dragging herself out of her kitchen using her arms, and wow, she really needed to sweep and mop, and her favorite pajamas with the cute little sloths were totally getting ruined, and now she was crying, completing her humiliation, but--

“Ah, Felicity. So good to see you again.”

Iliya. Iliya and his snake-like smile. 

“I let myself in. I was thinking you might be indisposed.”

He was laughing at her. 

“How does it feel, Felicity? To be a hacker and to know that your own body can be hacked?”

And then rage replaced her fear and humiliation. This was the Bratva? They  _ hacked  _ her? Oh, she was going to enjoy destroying them.

Before she could get very far in indulging her fantasies of revenge, she heard her front door smashing open. As if Mrs. Ferdinand needed one more thing to complain about.

“Felicity!”

Iliya’s smile widened.  “ _ My zdes' _ , Oliver” 

Oliver stumbled into the room, Guns still trained on his head, but he had his own and it was drawn too. “Felicity?”

“I’m fine,” she grumbled. “Just can’t really get up right now.”

Oliver’s eyes were looking wildly between her and the Bratva members making themselves at home in her living room.

“Is it a gun for you now?” Iliya asked. “We were expecting maybe an arrow.”

“Anything that will kill you.”   


“Oh, we both know you will do no such thing.” Iliya pulled his own gun and pointed it down at Felicity’s head. “You’re upset about the girl, but no need to worry. We only wanted to make it easier for her to stay still and listen to our proposal.”

“Anatoly,” Oliver ground out.

The man shrugged. “I am sorry to exploit a friend like this, Oliver, but it had to be done. We need the girl.”

“And it is not unlike we did not give you the choice to hand her over willingly,” Irina interjected.

And Felicity had had enough. “Okay, first of all, it’s woman. Not girl. And second of all, I am no one’s to ‘hand over.’ Maybe you should just ask nicely for what you want.”

“Wives are off limits,” Oliver barked.

“But she isn’t a wife, is she? And you are not really one of us, are you Oliver?” Anatoly replied.

“Hellooo, down here on the floor. What do you want?”

Iliya crouched down, gun still pointed at her head. “You are one of those girls. Always surrounded by bad men. Your father--we call him The Calculator, but his name Noah, yes?--he is a bad man. But he was always bragging about his genius daughter. How she is even better than him with the computers. And then he disappears. Takes quite a bit of our money too. What choice do we have, you tell me?”

“Well, I’d say you call the police or whoever you report robberies to in Russia, but I’m guessing you didn’t go that route.”

“You are a smart-ass. I have never enjoyed smart-ass women.” Iliya raised his gun as if to hit her, but Oliver lunged and Anatoly warned him.

“Iliya.”

He lowered his hand. “We work outside the law. This is similar to what you do already, yes?”

Oliver was to her left looking like he was about to have an aneurysm. Felicity thought she had a pretty clear picture of what was happening, so she decided it was time to summarize. “Okay, so my father stole your money and screwed you over. You used Oliver to test my skills and now you want me to work for you?”

“She is very bright, Oliver,” Anatoly said.

Oliver growled.

Felicity tried to send him chill out vibes. Damn she hated that she was having to do all of this from the floor. “Okay, fine. So what happens if I refuse?”

“Oliver dies,” Iliya said, almost giddy.

“As does Noah Kutter,” Anatoly adds.

Felicity nodded. “Good plan. I mean, now I’m in a pretty impossible spot. Wouldn’t you say so Oliver?”

His jaw was ticking. He was not enjoying this like she was, even if he wasn’t the one whose actual spine had just been hacked.

“I wasn’t a great businessman,” Oliver finally spoke. “But one thing I did learn is that you really should be careful about contracting out too much of your work to those who might have other loyalties.”

“Or no loyalty,” Felicity chimed in. “Which I happen to know all too well is the case with Noah Kutter.” She tilted her head to Iliya. “You’re all going to want to lower those guns. Killing me or Oliver would be a gigantic mistake.”

She really relished the exchanged looks of confusion the Russians tried to hide.

“Oh I see you’re confused. Yeah, I get that. You haven’t been able to find my dad, right? It’s because he’s the best. Well, except for me. I found him in hours. But don’t feel bad; this whole hacking my spinal chip is still a good trick.”

“This changes nothing,” Irina said.

“Et tu, Irina? Getting passion fruit facials together used to mean something. Right, Oliver?”

“Felicity.” 

That was his impatient voice. He wanted her to get on with it. Whatever, how many times had she been forced to listen to him take all sorts of dramatic liberties with his whole “You’ve failed this city” schtick? It was her turn.

“What Oliver’s too grumpy to tell you is, it actually changes everything. Accounts out of Nauru? How 90’s of you.”  
Iliya started to raise his gun, but Anatoly beckoned for him to stand down.

“Those account are untraceable,” the Pakhan said.

“Mmm, almost, but if you have the passwords, which I do thanks to your complete ignorance of technology and trust in my father, all you have to do is find the accounts they protect. Which, granted, should be a task next to impossible...unless you’re able to track a very specific pattern of purchases.”

The Russians had lost any appearance of control, and god, Felicity was enjoying this.

“In this case, that pattern was the delivery of a very specific candy and a certain Parisian lipstick to a vacation cabin on the Baltic sea. You, my friends, were brought down by your Pakhan’s love of Mini Reese’s Cups and his girlfriend’s makeup snobbery.” Boom. Drop the mic. And silent thanks to Aleysha, who was more than happy to reveal Irina’s lipstick brand. She and Felicity were actually becoming email buddies now that Masha had been made a fall guy in the trafficking bust, and Aleysha had taken the opportunity to escape to a cousin in Canada.

“What?” Iliya’s face was tomato red, and now he looked like the one in danger of a burst blood vessel. Anatoly, on the other hand, had gone ghost white.

“Oh yeah, I have your passwords, I have your accounts, and, if you have an app or something and want to check them, you’ll find that they’re frozen. In short, the Bratva is broke, and I have what is basically your nuclear codes, baby. Babies.? Whichever way sounds right.”  
More looks were exchanged, and Felicity felt it prudent to add. “You don’t want to kill me. If anything happens to me, those account numbers are released on the dark web and complete reports on Bratva dealings and expenditures are automatically sent to intelligence agencies all over the world. The same goes for anything happening to Oliver or my father.”

Having the upper hand was pretty much Felicity’s new favorite thing.

“What do you want?” Irina asked.

“Well, besides the ability to stand again, I want you out my home, out of this city, out of our lives and out of the human trafficking business. Meet those conditions, and you’ll have no trouble from me. Break even one, and it’s armageddon.”

There was a moment when it looked like the Bratva might fight, but as it so often does, money trumped all. Irina smirked and walked away. Iliya broke her lamp as he left, and Felicity had to call Oliver down; they’d replace the lamp. At the door, Anatoly turned back to him.

“I like her, Oliver. She will keep you on your toes.”

And Felicity might have been endeared to him, if she hadn’t seen the faces of the women and Nora, whom he’d imprisoned simply to test her. She hoped he gave her a reason to destroy him one day. He deserved it.

But then Oliver was by her side, picking her up and carrying her to the couch.

“You know I hated when you carried me.”

“Just this once,” he said. “Just until we can get Curtis over here to undo whatever it is they did.”

“Hacked me. Your old friends were assholes, Oliver.”

“Yeah, I know. But you beat them. I can’t believe you managed that.”

“And I continue to be insulted by all the things you still believe I can’t do.”

He leaned down to kiss her. “Another mistake I won’t make again.”

“Good,” she said, nipping at his bottom lip. “Besides this was a team effort.”

“And we are a very good team.”

“The best, probably.”

His hand was trailing under her shirt, and yeah, she needed to get this under control.

“Oliver?”

“Mmm?”

“Seriously, let’s call Curtis first.”

EPILOGUE

_ The needle buzzed against his skin. He didn’t flinch. There was nothing they could do to him here in the tunnels beneath the gulag that could be worse than what he’d already experienced. He felt nothing. And when it was over, his friend--his savior; his boss--held a up a jagged mirror. _

_ “It is finished. You are one of us now.” _

_ The black sun was seared into the skin above his heart, sealing his fate. _

His t-shirt rubbed against his blistered skin, irritating it. But it was over now. And it was worth it. Oliver entered the house through the back door, stepping to the kitchen.

“He’s back from his mysterious errand.”

He bent down to kiss his sister’s head. “Good morning, Speedy.”

Donna nodded at the octopus clock beside the fridge. “Afternoon, more like. Here, hon, can you put these on the island to cool for me.”

Oliver took the pumpkin pie and an aluminum tray of what looked like sweet potato casserole and winced. “Ummm...you guys didn’t make this, did you?”

Lance looked from the paper he was reading at the table and laughed. “No need to worry. The catering company just dropped it all off.”

Oliver sighed in relief. “And no one touched my turkey--”

“Oh my god, Oliver no one touched your precious bird and it’s super-special brine. I can’t decide which version you you is worse- My Brother the Brooder or Oliver McFussy Pants.”

Donna howled. “‘Oliver McFussy Pants’! Oh honey, that’s a good one.”

“You’ll change your tune tomorrow when you’re eating the most succulent turkey of your life.” He looked around the kitchen. “Where’s my fiance?”

“I sent her to the den to fix my computer stuff. I can’t get any of it to work. I swear those men who come to install all the thingamabobs always end up messing it up.”

“I’ll go see if I can help. Don’t touch my turkey!” He was pretty sure he heard Thea mumbling something about feeding his turkey to coyotes, but he let it go. He found Felicity in the den crawling around behind the furniture.

“I can feel you staring at my ass Oliver.”

“What can I say? It’s a good ass.”

Felicity crawled out from under the cabinet. She was covered in dust bunnies and was, without a doubt, the most adorable sight he’d ever seen.

“How’s the computer work coming?”

“Did my mom tell you I was working on the computer?” Felicity rolled her eyes. “There was nothing to do, she just wasn’t entering her password correctly. No, I’m hooking up her cable, which she had disconnected because ‘the cords looked so ugly.’ Apparently Sara is a big football fan?”

Oliver nodded--growing up, Sara and her dad had spent every Sunday afternoon in front of a game.

“Yeah, so Quentin wants to be able to watch it tomorrow when she comes back from--”

“Time traveling.”

She glared at him. “You know we don’t say that. As far as I’m concerned, Ray and Sara and all their weird little friends are involved in some sort of secret government mission...either that or they’re pulling the world’s most elaborate prank.”

“Okay, but--”

“Shhhh. I don’t want to hear it.”

She held her hand over his mouth, and he didn’t even care because it just gave him a better view of the ring on her finger. The ring that was finally there to stay. He kissed the inside of her palm.

“You’re so cheesy, Oliver. And, by the way, I compromised on the whole family holiday thing this year, but next year we’re doing Friendsgiving--Dig, Lyla, Baby Sara, Curtis and Paul-- if family wants to come that’s fine, but no more staying at my mother’s house.”

He pouted. “But what about my ‘sex in your childhood bedroom’ fantasy.”

“Well, that’s never going to happen because A. that’s a weird, gross fantasy that I do not plan to indulge and B. even if I were so inclined, I didn’t have a childhood bedroom Oliver. I had childhood bedrooms, scattered across the trailer parks & apartment complexes in the sketchy part of Vegas, not here in this adorable Spanish-style bungalow.”

“You’re crushing my dreams, Smoak.”

“Yeah, well, your tattoos are dropping like flies, so all of our fantasies are dying today.” She peeked under his t-shirt. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really. They said this should be the last treatment.” What had seemed so heavy, so indelible before would soon fade away into nothing.

“Gone before the honeymoon.”

“I can get new tattoos if that’s what does it for you,” he pulled her onto his lap.

“I’m covered in dust!”

He nipped at her neck, loving the way her head fell back and her hips rocked forward. “Mmmmm. Don’t care.”

“So dirt is what does it for you?”

He cupped her chin and kissed the tip of her nose. “You’re what does it for me.”

She kissed him quickly and stepped away. “I’m going to go shower and change before this goes any further and my mother charges in here squealing about babies.” She paused. “I was kidding about missing that tattoo. It didn’t suit you. I love you, Oliver.”

“I love you back, Felicity.”

And tomorrow, when everyone had had a little too much wine, allowed themselves to get wrapped up in the sentimentality of the holiday, and decided to go around the table and say all the things they were thankful for, Oliver already knew what his answers would be.

Love. Forgiveness. Second chances.


End file.
